Master and Apprentice
by kidlat
Summary: What if Anakin Solo didn't die in Star by Star? What if Anakin Solo had an apprentice? How does she feel towards her Master? Check her out here.incomplete
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer**: I own only Anakin Solo's apprentice. Please read and review. Sorry if it's short. This is just to test if I should continue on fanfic-making.  
  


  
**Master and Apprentice**  
  


  
I sit, meditating, letting myself be lost in my thoughts, surrendering myself to the Force.  
  
I could sense everything, yet nothing at once. I could sense the air I breathe in, the movement of the trees outside the windows, the chattering of the Jedi younglings being trained byMaster Tionne Solusar. So full of life. So full of energy.  
  
Most of all, I could sense Master Anakin. My Master.  
  
He is out on yet another mission to the Outer Rim, together with Tahiri. I feel a slight tug of jealousy as I ponder on this thought, but it quickly washes away; I have been trained to release all feelings that can easily lead me to the Dark Side. Master Anakin has taught me well.  
  
I can sense his every move. I can feel him, perceive him. I am ONE with him. His joys are my joys; his sorrows mine. It is the same; my joys are his, my sorrows also his to suffer. We dwell on the same emotions.  
  
I know him better than Tahiri, his best friend, does. I feel his love for her. I know his fondness for Jaina, his older sister, and his brotherly comradery towards Jacen, Jaina's twin brother. I suffer his grief over Chewbacca's death, and his anger to himself as he blames himself for all the deaths he knows he caused on the Centerpoint station. I know and understand the dreams and visions he foresees, and I can comprehend his anxiety over them.  
  
He knows of my pains from the past. He knows my father well, as if he was raised under the same authority. He knows my agony over the death of my family in Coruscant, and of the horrific dreams I dream at night, voices I hear when I am alone, the guilt in me slowly tearing me apart.  
  
Perhaps it is the bond between Master and Apprentice that binds us close together. I love him as much as life itself, and I know that he loves me that way, too. He is me. I am him.  
  
I contemplate on all these thoughts as I envelop myself in the Force. It wraps around me like an old familiar blanket of security, comfort, and power.  
  
Wait.  
  
I sense something. Master Anakin is in danger.  
  
Quickly, I reach out towards him, feeling for him, probing my way across the galaxy, trying to sense through for him.  
  
Trying to find him.


	2. One

**Master and Apprentice**

As I stayed awake, practicing with my lightsaber, my mind wandered off to recent events concerning the Order that even I, a Jedi Apprentice, was involved in.  
  


  
Use the Force, a voice inside told me. I probed into the energy field, reaching out, groping, sensing...It was helping me, guiding my every move, my every stroke, my every swing...

  
I was so lost in my thoughts and in my practice that I hadn't noticed my Master silently watching me. It was only after he spoke did I halt my practicing.  
  


  
"You are doing well, my young Padawan," said Jedi Master Anakin Solo, walking into the room and smiling down at me.  
  


  
I bowed low before him as a sign of respect, sweat dripping off my forehead from the intense training I plunged myself into. "Thank you, Master."  
  


  
"How long have you been keeping up with lightsaber practice?" he asked. 

  
"Not very long, Master. I couldn't sleep, and I thought it best to practice while I couldn't. Sleep, that is." I mentally slapped myself for stumbling over my words.

  
He smiled once more. He must've known how it is.   
  


  
I pressed the switch that deactivates my lighsaber; the faint humming sound stopped, and the pale white light was gone. I placed the lightsaber back on my belt. There was an awkward silence for a few moments.

  
"I-Is everything alright at the Order?" I said after a long pause, in an attempt to break the silence.

  
Master Anakin sighed wearily. Young as he was, a few years my senior, the lines of worry were beginning to take a toll on his face. "We still cannot make contact with Master Luke. He seemed to have gone to Almenia in search for Aunt Mara, but we cannot locate his ship on our sensors. Strange, Almenia is near Yavin...I don't know how..."

  
He stopped and looked at me. "Lunaris, are you _sure_ you gave us the _exact_ coordinates Uncle Luke told you to give to us?"  
  


  
How many times have we been through this? "Of course, Master," I said, struggling to keep from rising my voice in my annoyance. "How many times have I let you--and the Order--down?"

  
He gazed steadily at me with his piercing blue eyes, and I suddenly felt the Force prod at my brain. I looked back at him unflinchingly, determined to prove to him that I wasn't lying.

  
He seemed to have sensed my frustration.

  
/_Never. I'm sorry_./ He used the Force to speak to me again, without having to open his mouth.

  
/_Sorry for what?_/

  
/_For doubting you, even just this once._/

  
This surprised me. I was at a loss for words.  
  


  
/_It's...alright. Thank you, Master._/

  
I smiled faintly and started to walk away. I was conscious of his stare upon my retreating back, and just before I turned the corner, he called out my name.  
  


  
I wheeled around, waiting for him to talk.

  
  


  
I could not read his expression; he seemed to want to say something to me.  
  


  
"Goodnight, Lunaris," he finally said.  
  


  
I bowed slightly. "Goodnight, Master."


	3. Two

A bit of explanation before I go on…The prologue is set in the present, and all these other chapters are set in the past, thus the present tense for the prologue, and the past tense for all the other chapters, until I reach a chapter that is set during the prologue. I hope you get me…

**Disclaimer: **I only own Lunaris and her dad. The rest are George Lucas'. I'm only borrowing them for the time being.

_Lunaris!_

My master called me through the Force again. Whatever it is, I didn't do it. 

I jumped up from my meditating and ran out of the room. As my feet pattered noisily on the marble floor, I though of all the things I could've done that made Master Anakin call me using the Force.

And he calls for me through the Force only if it's terribly important, or if I did something wrong again.

Maybe it was because I had sneaked out with Atenke Cama, a fellow Jedi and a Twi'lek, last week on X-wings to help him ward off the Peace Brigade headed towards Ryloth , his home planet. I didn't tell Master Anakin where I would be going; he wouldn't let me, and Atenke had told me just a few hours before we left the Academy. I couldn't help it; he loved Ryloth, and he'd convinced me so well.

Maybe it was because I had accidentally burst in on him and Tahiri while they were having another one of their…private moments. I had just stood there, gaping at them, until Master Anakin turned to see who was looking; I had left already, moments before he turned around. It was useless for me to have escaped, though; Master Anakin would've known who it was through the Force. 

Maybe it was—

I stopped dead in my tracks as I arrived at the entrance to the enormous chamber, reserved only for significant meetings and Jedi training. Master Anakin was standing beside a white-armored man: a stormtrooper. As soon as they had heard footsteps echo and stop at the doorway, the stormtrooper veered around and took off his helmet. I heard a sharp intake of breath—I hadn't realized it was me.

"Hello, Lunaris." The man smiled sardonically, showing a set of yellowish teeth. I winced inwardly, forcing a stream of horrible scenes to play before me. Master Anakin's face was hard; it terrified me.

Taiar Orald.

"Father."

Anakin couldn't bring himself to look at his Padawan's face. He knew how horrible her life was with her father before she'd surrendered herself to the ways of the Jedi. Even if he turned away, he could still sense her fear and apprehension.

/ _I'm sorry./ _He tried to reach out to her through the Force.

It hadn't been his fault. The man had suddenly rushed in through the doors of the Academy, half-crazed, calling for Lunaris and scaring away a group of Jedi younglings. Anakin had quickly calmed the man using an old Jedi mind trick and had probed through his brain. _I must find my daughter…need her…want her…_

"Perhaps I should leave the two--" he began, but he was cut off, mid-sentence, by a short but desperate plea from Lunaris. /_Please don't go!/_ She might as well have grabbed on to the sleeve of his robe and clung to it. She whimpered audibly and advanced a step back.

The man laughed harshly. "Go do that." He took a step towards Lunaris.

Anakin abruptly perceived an inkling of the man's intentions on his apprentice, and instantly blocked his path towards her. "Get out of the way, Jedi, I just want to talk to my daughter," the man said impatiently, waving his blaster in a motion to shoo Anakin away from Lunaris.

"No," Anakin murmured under his breath. Suprisingly, although obviously under the influence of liquor, her father had heard.

"Don't stop me now, boy. You don't know what I can do to you," he threatened, his words slurred.

"No," Anakin repeated it, much louder.

"I warned you, boy. Now you asked for it!" The man started to shoot at Anakin, unexpectedly missing him only by a few inches, even after having drunk heavily. Anakin immediately drew out his lightsaber and easily deflected the man's blaster shots. 

 Anakin didn't know what caused him to do it—his annoyance at being called a boy once more, or his anger at Lunaris' father's purpose on her. Using the Force, he lifted the man up in the air and threw him hard against the wall, making him hit his head and slump down, unconscious.

He felt Lunaris shaking uncontrollably beside him and suddenly realized that she was crying. Without warning, he was aware of his arms going around her, trying to soothe her.

He felt Tahiri's presence in the room. She had arrived from Yavin the day before to help out in the praxeum. /_Tahiri, help me./_

_/Help you what, Anakin?/_

_/ Help me calm her down./_


	4. Three

**Disclaimer: **I own only Lunaris, her dad, and their stuff. =D 

_She stood up from the ground, her robes in tatters, her eye swollen and puffy. Blood dripped down from her mouth to her front, staining the coarse cloth a deeper shade of brown. She swayed unsteadily, but looked piercingly at the man before her._

_He looked disgustingly at her._ So much like her mother…_ Inwardly, he was amazed at her resilience, but that didn't stop him from pulling back his hand and bringing it down hard on her face. She fell once more to the ground, and didn't try to get up again._

_"Father…please…" Her hand drifted up to her cheek, now turning a dull purple. "I want to be a Jedi."_

_"To what? To die a death that no one would know or care about? To risk your life trying to protect the very people who try to get rid of you?" He grabbed the front of her robes and lifted her up, so he could look at her straight in the eye. "No, Lunaris. You will never be a Jedi." He tossed her into one corner._

_ She didn't want to give up. Not now. "Why won't I?"_

_"Because I said so."_

_"Mother was a Jedi. And one of the best ones, too. You heard what Master Luke said."_

_"I don't care about what some crazy fool says about your mother. She died, and that's that."_

_"Mother would want me to be a Jedi."_

_"That's a lie."_

_"If I become a Jedi, what will you do?"_

_"I'll hunt you down and bring you back here. I'll make sure you'll never see them again. I'll lock you up in here and starve you, for being so disobedient."_

_She knew who "they" were. And she knew he wasn't joking. He never did. She decided to try again. Just once more._

_"Why won't you let me be a Jedi?"_

_"Your mother died because she was a Jedi."_

_"But Father, you told me she was killed during a mission to rescue refugees from the Yuuzhan Vong."_

_"No, Lunaris. She was killed by her own kind. The New Republic had had the Jedi killed. Your mother was one of the Jedi who weren't able to get out from Yavin 4 safely."_

_The night was thick with darkness. The wind was blowing every now and then, giving the tiny room a bit of cold. A small light was turned on in one corner, a small figure hunched over it._

_She knew that her father didn't want her to be a Jedi because he didn't want to lose her. She also knew that he didn't want her to become a Jedi because the Yuuzhan Vong would have him killed, as he was a member of the Peace Brigade. If the Yuuzhan Vong found out that his own daughter was a Jedi, they would want him dead. _

_Besides, it was too late. She already was a Jedi. A Padawan learner, but still a Jedi. She left the Order temporarily, promising her master of her return. She thought her father would then be proud of her, for following her mother's footsteps, but she was disillusioned when she came home and was bolted in her room. Her lightsaber was thrown away in the junkyard outside the house, and was only allowed outside during mealtimes. She climbed down the window at night to retrieve pieces of her lightsaber and attempted to fix it together._

_At last she stood up, her lightsaber in her hand. She pressed a button on one side of it, and a white light shone through the darkness, generating the familiar monotonous hum. She pressed the button once more, and the light disappeared as quick as it had appeared. She placed the cylinder on a hook on her belt, and donned her black Jedi robes, putting the hood over her head. She placed a hand on her cheek and put herself in a slight healing trance to relieve the physical pain she felt._

_She walked over to the window and lightly jumped out, using the Force to land her safely on the ground outside. She paused for a moment and turned around, looking back at the place she called home for most of her life. "This is not my home anymore…" she murmured, unconsciously lifting her hand to touch the braid at the side of her head. "The New Order is." She then swiveled around and ran away, deep into the darkness, never to come back._

I replayed the scenes over and over again in my mind. The memories were too painful to erase, even for me.

"Lunaris?" Master Anakin's gentle tone prodded me to look up. His eyes were filled with concern and worry. No sign of pity. 

"He's here." My voice trembled. "He's going to take back. He's going to lock me up again and never let me come back here." I fought for control as my words came out. I swallowed a lump in my throat. 

"He said that? He told you he'd never let you come back here once he found you?" Master Anakin moved to sit on the floor beside me, where I was crouched down and rocking back and forth. "When did this happen?"

"When I left the Order for a short time. I had to run away from there. I promised you I'd come back."

"And you did…" Master Anakin looked away. "…with a swollen eye and a broken jaw."

" He hurt me. Then he told me that. And he said he never wanted me to be a Jedi because I'd die anyway, and no one would know or care about it. He always hurt me, even before I came here. And he always neglected me." His painful words struck me again, like they did before. Then I realized something.

  
"Is it true, Master? Do we Jedi die without anyone caring about it? Is it much better for us to die, so the Yuuzhan Vong won't be so destructive? Did anyone really care about my mother's death when it happened?" 

I disappoint myself. Tears started to spill from my eyes, but I gulped down my sobs. _There is no emotion, there is peace…_so goes the Jedi Code. I have broken it again. My whole body started to hurt again, in the very places they did when my father first hurt me. It always happens, whenever I think about these memories.

Master Anakin didn't say anything for a while, but took my hands in his. His eyes were closed, and he moved in front of me. He seemed to be meditating.

He started to talk to me through the Force. Then I felt some sort of renewed energy in me.

_/Better? /_

_/Yes, Master, I-- What's happening to me? /_

_/How do you feel? /_

_/Much better. Calmer. Re-energized/_

_/That's good. /_

_/What did you do, Master? /_

_/I merely transferred some of my energy and peacefulness to you through the Force. It's like a healing trance, except I'm not healing you. /_

_/I like it, Master. Please teach it to me. /_

_/Another day, Lunaris. Another day. /_

I opened my eyes, and he smiled at me. "Your father has been sent away. He won't be back after a long time. We've made sure of that."

Something in his expression told me he wasn't lying, and I breathed a sigh of relief. _/Thank you. /_

Maybe it'll take a whole lot of time before my wounds and bruises won't hurt so much anymore whenever remember that night. Maybe it'll take even longer for those memories I had with my father to be easier to bear whenever I remember them. 

At least I'm here.


	5. Four

**To charm school drop-out:** I made it younglings, because I bought a Star Wars Attack of the Clones book, and it said in there that young Jedi candidates who have a lot to go through before being chosen as an apprentice or anything are called Jedi younglings. They even have clans. In Attack of the Clones, when Obi-Wan was looking for a planet, and Yoda was teaching a class? That class is called the Bear Clan, and they're called Jedi younglings. I really research on them, yah know. ^_^ 

Anakin stood by the glass window, staring at the elevated structures and vehicles rush by outside the praxeum. He was quite shaken up after Lunaris' father had come for her, and after she told him everything that happened when she had impermanently left the Order, he vowed to keep a closer watch on her after that.

"He has been sent back to the Peace Brigade. They know what to do with him," Tahiri had told him when he asked her about it.

Still, he couldn't stand to see her so affected by her father's return for her. His mind flashed back to a recent episode, a few weeks ago.

_Anakin woke up to the sound of his apprentice's voice from her room. He thought she might've been talking in her sleep._

_But the Force told him otherwise. He sensed that she was more than just sleep talking._

_He quickly put on his robes and ran up the stairs to her room. As he burst through the door, he saw his apprentice on the balcony ledge just outside her room, her eyes shut, waving a non-existent lightsaber. The wind was blowing violently that night, and Lunaris was small and light. The wind could easily toss her over the edge._

_She seemed to be dueling with someone in her dreams; he could see her duck an imaginary blow, and make a smooth comeback that made her opponent fall on his back, with the tip of her lightsaber barely centimeters away from his neck. Even in her sleep could he see his training on her had been well learned._

_Anakin didn't know why he didn't go after her, or woken her up from her trance. Instead he just watched his Padawan from the doorway._

_But then, after a split second, he couldn't see her on the ledge anymore. It took him a precious few moments to figure out that she had jumped from the balcony. He slammed open the glass doors that separated her room from the balcony and without thinking, jumped down after her._

_He used the Force to increase the speed of his fall without hurting any of his bones and landed on the ground below just in time to catch Lunaris in his arms. His knees buckled under the sudden weight, and slumped to the ground, breathing a sigh of relief._

Anakin was so lost in thought that he jumped when a hand touched him on the shoulder. _Vaping moffs!_ He turned around to find himself looking up into his Uncle Luke's familiar age- and scar-roughened face. "Did I disturb you?"

"Not really. I was just thinking about Lunaris." Something in his voice echoed the concern and worry he had been feeling for his young Padawan lately.

"Because of her father's sudden...invasion here?"

"It's more than that. It's about her father, but not just that." He turned to look back outside the window.

"What do you mean?"

"I went to her after her father came here. She told me about what her father did to her when she went to see him, when she promised me she'd come back. She told me that she had been physically abused, and that he'd threatened to find her and literally lock her up if she attempted escape." Luke remained silent, so he let on. "The thing is, I don't even know if I should be feeling concern or anything for her. I shouldn't let my emotions get in the way of being a Jedi or using the Force, should I?"

"Anakin," Luke began. "If this concern of yours for your Padawan affects the way you move or the way you continue your duties as a Jedi, then you should use the Force to help you ease it away. Also, this is a matter that involves both you and Lunaris, and one way to help her get over it is if you help her, you being her Master. I don't see anything wrong with having any concern for her."

Anakin pondered on this for a moment. "It's been haunting her in her dreams, too."

"How do you know?"

"Remember when I caught her just in time, as she was falling from her balcony? She told me afterwards that the person she was fighting in her dreams was a tall man in a black cloak, with a hood over his head. He was a Jedi, she said, because he had a lightsaber, and he knew how to use it well. She succeeded in defeating him, because she had made him fall on his back on the ledge. But when he did, the hood fell off his head, and the man underneath it was her father."

Luke's brow was furrowed. "And?"

"She was stunned, she said. And before she had time to react, her father swung his leg around, making her lose her balance and fall as it hit her leg. I noticed that her robes were singed at the edges, so I asked her if her father had swung his lightsaber below her. She said that he had, but it didn't hurt her because she jumped up just as he was about to hit her feet, but he burned the edges of her robes as she did. It's kind of puzzling, but I know it was traumatic for her, though she hides it pretty well."

Luke thought for a moment. "She really needs your help now, Anakin. Don't think twice about your concern for her being wrong. Use the Force to help her heal those memories."

Anakin mulled over this. "Thanks, Uncle Luke," he finally said.

Luke just smiled again. "I'm not quite done yet, Anakin.

Anakin grinned sheepishly. "Sorry."

"I was hoping on sending both you and Lunaris on a mission, but since you're uneasy about her, I thought I ought to give it to someone--"

"No, Uncle, let me have it. If Lunaris doesn't want to, I can ask Tahiri to come with me." A small blush spread across his cheeks as he mentioned her name.

"Alright. This could also be one way to help Lunaris forget about her father for the moment, if she is willing to go."

"I thought so, too. What is this mission about?"

Luke pulled out a small gadget. It was round in shape and had curved lines fused on three places on the outside. Luke pressed a button, and a hologram of a young man with a peculiar scar on his forehead. "Over four millennia ago, a Jedi named Exar Kun turned over to the Dark Side. He was foreseen to be a great Jedi Master, but impatience and an extreme curiosity for the Dark Side drove him to explore Onderan, where he freed the spirit of Freedon Nadd, an ancient Sith who then told him through disembodied commands to go to Korriban, the Sith mausoleum back then. There, the Sith spirits tried his resolve and crushed his body underneath a pile of heavy rock. They gave him a choice: to die a Jedi or to live a Sith. Finally, he chose to live a Sith, and garnered a lot of Dark Side power he would never be able to have as a Jedi. He then apprenticed Ulic Qel-Droma, a former Jedi turned Sith lord, and together they recruited unleashed a plague that the galaxy would never forget.

"Finally, a joint Republic and Jedi taskforce came to Yavin 4 to capture Exar Kun. He knew he could not survive the attack, so he summoned his dark side energies and trapped his consciousness into the temples his Massassi warriors had built for him." (A/N: These lines have been taken from the starwars.com databank. They belong there, not to me.)

"Exar Kun…" Anakin tried to recall the familiar name. "Wasn't he the spirit who took over Kyp Durron when he used to be trained at the Jedi temple on Yavin 4?"

"Yes, that's him."

"What does our mission have anything to do with him?"

"When Exar Kun went to Onderan, there were two scrolls he found that guided him inside the burial grounds of Freedon Nadd. Freedon Nadd has not been destroyed or banished yet, so he returned to his burial grounds and there he waits now while guarding the scrolls that will lead to his freedom. If anyone finds the scrolls, another Sith reign may start anew."

"So you want us to destroy the scrolls and the spirit of Freedon Nadd on Onderan?"

"You learn fast, Anakin. Soon, you may have to take my place as Jedi Master." Luke looked appraisingly at his young nephew. "Unfortunately, it's not that easy. There is already a Yuuzhan Vong base near the location of the burial grounds, where the crypt and the scrolls are located, and there are quite a number of beasts and Dark Side creatures you have to destroy before you get to the burial grounds itself. There are a whole lot of other obstacles you have to overcome before you are able to destroy the scrolls."

"How do we destroy Freedon Nadd himself?"

"His life is written on the scrolls. Once you destroy them, so will you his spirit."

"I don't recall an Onderan somewhere in our galaxy."

"I'm going to have to research on this, but I'll tell you as soon as I've located it."

Anakin gazed thoughtfully at the holographic figure of the man before him. "I'll take it."


	6. Five

Many thanks to starwars.com where I pick up most of my information, and to the Star Wars books either lent or given to me by family or friends.

"Lunaris," Master Anakin tapped lightly on my doorframe. I was fixing my lightsaber, checking it for minor tweaking or adjustments. 

"Yeah?" It sounded rude to me to be answering that way, but I didn't feel the need for unnecessary politeness at that moment. "Come in if you want, I'll just finish this."

Master Anakin sat on my bed and waited for me. I twiddled with the knobs for the blade and screwed the top back in place. "There." I pushed the button at the side, and the usual white light materialized into view. "No minor adjustments necessary, just frequent use."

"That won't be a problem anymore," Master Anakin said. "Uncle Luke's sent us on a mission to some place called Korriban."

"I don't recall a Korriban anywhere in our galaxy," 

"Neither did I. Uncle Luke says he'll try to find out about it."

I pressed the button again, and the droning hum stopped. I laid it down on the table beside me. "So…what are we supposed to do in this Korriban place?"

"Destroy two scrolls that'll tell you how to resurrect a ancient Sith's spirit."

"What?!" I couldn't believe this. Was this all I was good for? Not only was our mission too easy, cutting up a bunch of stupid scrolls, my fears had finally come true. "Look, I know about your concern for me and situation with my father, and maybe you think that I won't be focused and concentrated on our mission this time because my mind'll be preoccupied with memories from back then, but I tell you, your time and energy for worrying about me is a complete waste. There are other things you ought to be worrying about, like the Peace Brigade and the Yuuzhan Vong and the Republic's refusal to help us!" I was really rambling now. "He came here and now he's gone, all in a few days' time. I've forgotten all about it, really, Master, I have--"

"Lunaris, wait." Master Anakin stood up and firmly shook my shoulders. "Get a grip. First off, I don't think my worrying for you is a total waste. I'm your Master, you're my Apprentice. Whatever happens to you is my problem, and I have to help you get over it."

"Have to?"

"Yes, have to." He gave me another one of his goofy smiles, and I relaxed. "Also, I don't want to think about the Peace Brigade or the Yuuzhan Vong or the Republic or _anything _that doesn't have any connection whatsoever to this mission. And I don't think you're fully recovered from your hurt and all, but Uncle Luke and I believe that doing this mission will help in finally…healing you. A simple Jedi healing trance won't be enough, you know."

I sighed. "Alright. But do we really have to just burn up some pieces of paper?"

"It's not just that." Master Anakin picked up my lightsaber handle from the table and toyed with it. "There's a Yuuzhan Vong base near the location of the Sith mausoleum--"

"A _Sith _mausoleum? What's a Sith?"

"Korriban is a Sith mausoleum," Master Anakin explained patiently. "The whole planet is. A Sith is what you would call…Dark Jedi. A Jedi who uses the Dark Side of the Force. Before Yuuzhan Vong came into our galaxy, the Sith and the Jedi fought a war against one another. Darth Vader was the last one, I think."

Oh. Something new. "So…that's it? We fight a whole base of Yuuzhan Vong, then get inside the mausoleum, and destroy the scrolls, and that's it?"

"Not quite. Uncle Luke was vague about what else was in there. Maybe because we have to be careful, because there might be ancient Sith spirits in there, and they might try to corrupt us. Besides, these aren't just scrolls. They tell you how to free a powerful Sith spirit called Freedon Nadd. He was freed before, and Uncle Luke thinks he might be freed again if we don't act fast enough. The Yuuzhan Vong may beat us to it."

"Alright." I was itching to put my training to the test, anyway.

"Oh, and um, Lunaris." Master Anakin cleared his throat. "You wouldn't mind if we brought…Tahiri, would you?"

"What?!" This was my second what in less than ten minutes. "Again? Why?" 

"Oh. For…company. And additional help, in case we need it," He was turning a deep shade of red.

Sithspawn. I found this reason hard to believe. "Whatever happened to 'Always two, there are; no more, no less, a Master and his Apprentice'?" I tried to control my voice from rising. Master Anakin was looking at his hands, so he couldn't see my struggle.

"You'll still be my Padawan, and I'll still be your Master, won't I? I just thought of bringing Tahiri for…reinforcement?"

"REINFORCEMENT?" I was surprised the Force didn't warn Master Anakin how…angry I was getting, and that's saying a lot. I mean, sure they're best friends and probably more than that now, and I wouldn't want to get in the way of their "budding relationship", but she'd already accompanied us in _all _our missions, intentional or not. I was hoping that this would be our first mission without her. "Master, I--"

"You don't mind, do you?" He peered up at me just then. I hate it when he does that. His ice-blue eyes staring up at me in that hopeful way that never fails to win my heart over, even if my brain is already screaming otherwise.

_Mind? Of course I mind!_ But what choice did I have? Whether I wanted to or not, he'd always find a reason to bring her along—just like in our past missions. "No, I don't mind," I said, feeling somewhat defeated.

"Thanks! I knew you'd agree." He swept me up into a hug and promptly left, leaving me feeling very dejected, despite the hug. If I hadn't known better, I'd bet that Master Anakin would rather have Tahiri along than me. 

Anakin found Tahiri in the chamber in the middle of the praxeum, practicing with a few training droids Anakin had built for himself. Behind her, a huge transparent steel window faced the harsh, never-ending Coruscant light. 

She blew her blonde bangs off her forehead. "Begin sequence one."

The droids flew into action, their skeletal frames moving with amazing speed. They each had wicked-looking staffs—sharp on one end and spoon-shaped on the other, made to look like Yuuzhan Vong amphistaffs. The droids were designed to fight and battle using Yuuzhan Vong techniques, but also made to stop the moment they touched the skin of their opponent.

Anakin watched as Tahiri deftly ducked a blow from a droid coming from her left and swinging out her blade to meet its blow. Another droid came at her from her rear and she Force-jumped backwards, landing behind the droid and nearly slicing it in half.

Anakin had had enough. He wanted to have at least one droid to train with when she was done. "Tahiri!" he called out.

"Anakin?" she said, turning her head just as another droid raised his amphistaff above her head. 

"Halt!" he commanded. The droid stopped, mid-blow, and died down. "Hi, Tahiri."

"Hi, yourself." She picked herself up from the floor and faced him." What did you do that for?"

"I wanted to make sure I wouldn't have to rebuild more training droids for myself. You were using a real lightsaber, weren't you?"

"Yeah, I was. But I couldn't find a blade-shaped force field, the one that you use whenever you train. Besides, I was getting rusty. I had to polish my skills again with your droids, since I haven't been able to use them lately."

"You don't have to worry about that now." Anakin's face broke into a grin. "You're coming with me and Lunaris to another mission."

Tahiri's reaction was not what Anakin expected. "Again?"

"Why? What's wrong with it? You don't want to go with us?" Anakin's grin faded a trifle.

"No, no, it's just that I always thought that missions like these were only for Master and Apprentice, to help the Apprentice learn and the Master teach," she said, quoting a line from a Jedi book she'd read. "Besides, I've been to all your missions, and I don't think it's very fair to Lunaris if we keep doing the fighting more often than she does." It was true.

Anakin tried to stifle his disappointment. "But this time, you can help me teach Lunaris."

Tahiri shook her head. "You know that's not my place, Anakin Solo. But, I will come with you, in case you need reinforcements."

Anakin smiled. "That's the Tahiri I know."

"And love?"

"And love." 

They walked on silently for a few more awkward minutes. Anakin wasn't used to feeling this way; what happened to the bubbly, talkative Tahiri he left on Yavin 4? 

"Why'd you suddenly come here on Coruscant?" he asked, in an effort to break the silence.

"It was boring at the Temple, and Kyp was driving me nuts with his we-should-go-destroy-the-Yuuzhan-Vong speeches and his playing hero with his squadron again." Kyp Durron wanted to go ahead and fight against the Yuuzhan Vong, much to the disapproval of Luke. "Besides, I was sent here by Kam Solusar. He said I might be needed here. Looks like I arrived at the right time."

"Yeah, you were. Thanks for helping me with Lunaris' father back then, Tahiri."

"No need to thank me, Skywalker."

Anakin then looked at Tahiri; she looked as if she might burst with something she'd been wanting to say in a long time. "Tahiri, I--"

"I missed you, Anakin."

"I-I missed you too," he stammered.

"Why didn't you ever come visit me at Yavin 4? I was bored out of my wits there. None of the kids there would talk to me, they were too busy with their training, and Master Ikrit didn't think I was ready to help teach them." Her intense green eyes looked up into his bright blue ones. 

"I was--"

"—busy, as always, as usual."

Anakin felt himself getting annoyed. "Tahiri, you don't understand, I--"

"Yes, Anakin, I don't understand, which is all the more reason you ought to take time to explain it all to me." Tahiri stopped and folded her arms in front of her. "What I _do _understand is that you're too busy to keep in touch with me, your best friend, even between all those battles and wars you've been going to. Why don't you ask for my help? Why don't you bring me along with you?"

"Tahiri, it's because you're too--"

"Young, Anakin? Will I always be "young" to you? I'm nearly sixteen, Anakin, can't you see that?" Her voice was close to a shrill now.

"Tahiri, please, I--"

"Master Anakin, Master Luke is calling for you." C-3PO's well-modulated voice interrupted Anakin, mid-sentence. " He says it's quite important."

"Thanks, Threepio." Anakin followed the protocol droid into Luke's study, leaving Tahiri in the hall outside without saying goodbye. He could feel her eyes boring into the back of his head, but he ignored this. "Have you found the location of Korriban?"

Luke looked up from a holographic map of the galaxy he was studying in the middle of the room. "Threepio, could you please check if all ships on our docking bay are functioning?"

"Certainly, Master Luke." C-3PO walked out of the room, leaving Luke and Anakin alone.

Luke pointed to a location in the map. "According to my research, Korriban should be right here."

Anakin stared at the space beyond Luke's finger. "Should be is right. It isn't there."

"That's what's so strange about it. Korriban hasn't been blown up or destroyed in the past four or five thousand years. It should be here."

"Maybe the system needs to be upgraded," Anakin suggested. 

"Oh. Artoo," Luke summoned the astromech droid to his side. "Will you please upgrade this?"

Artoo beeped a reply and inserted a tool-tipped appendage from his small frame into a small machine that powered the hologram. The map disappeared and reappeared again, including more planets and stars in the galaxy. "Thanks, Artoo," Luke said. R2-D2 beeped again, and rolled away.

"There it is. Korriban. It's an Outer Rim planet, very close to wild space. It's much nearer Tatooine, if you need to stop somewhere familiar." Luke pointed at the holographic dot, and it expanded to fit the whole screen. "Moderate climate, with a lot of dense woods and wide clearings but deserted, save for the Yuuzhan Vong base, a few creatures, and whatever lurks in the Sith mausoleum." Luke handed Anakin a datacard. "This is a  map of the place, in case you need it."

C-3PO came in just then. "All ships are functioning, Master Luke. Will I have a ship prepared for you?"

"That won't be necessary. Please prepare one for Anakin here."

"Of course, Master Luke." He hobbled out again.

"You might want to bring Artoo," Luke said.

"I will." Anakin replied. "Uncle Luke, do you think bringing Tahiri along with us is a bad idea?"

"What makes think so?"

"Well, I asked Lunaris if I could. She agreed, but she didn't seem to happy. I can't blame her, Tahiri's been to every one of our missions. But I don't feel right without her."

"Anakin." Luke walked over and placed a hand on Anakin's shoulder. "There comes a time when a Master feels that he and his apprentice should be alone during training. It is the time when the Master feels that he is ready, or his apprentice is ready. Before that, the Master may ask assistance from anyone he feels he needs help from. Just follow whatever your head and your heart tells you."

"I will. And right now, it's telling me to get ready to leave."

"I'll tell Threepio to have it ready by tomorrow. Artoo will go with you. And Anakin."

"Yeah?"

"May the Force be with you."

"May the Force be with you, too."


	7. Six

"Three starships?" I groaned.

Master Anakin, Tahiri and I had just entered the docking bay. I knew we'd be flying there, but I had no idea we'd each be doing it alone. 

"What's wrong?" Tahiri asked.

"I forgot. She doesn't know how to fly a ship." Master Anakin told her. 

"Don't make it seem like it's a bad thing," I said between gritted teeth.

Master Anakin and Tahiri exchanged knowing glances. I hate it when they do that. I chose to ignore this. "Well?"

R2-D2 beeped beside me. "Looks like you'll be riding with Artoo," Tahiri said.

"I knew that. But I still can't do it. And I don't think X-wings have autopilot." This day wasn't turning out too well.

"They do, but it's better if you're on manual. You actually learn the controls." Master Anakin said. 

"Master…" I didn't know if he was being stupid on purpose because Tahiri was here or because he really forgot. "I can't fly because…"

"Because?" He looked confused, then he brightened up. "Oh! Oh…"

"What?" Tahiri looked at Master Anakin, then at me. 

"She hates flying." 

"I did after I accidentally pressed the eject button the first time I rode a ship," I added. 

"Oh. Well…what now, Anakin?"

"I don't know. Threepio said that these were the only ships available, since Jaina used the others for some sort of emergency." Jaina Solo was Anakin's older sister and a member of the Rogue Squadron, an elite group of starship pilots.

"Are you going to leave me here?" I asked dubiously. 

"Of course not," Tahiri replied. 

Master Anakin was deep in thought. "I don't know if it's going to work, but I've been practicing on this for a while," he finally said.

"What?" Tahiri and I said.

Master Anakin went over to me and placed two fingers on each of my temples. "Close your eyes." he commanded.

I don't know what he did to me, but I suddenly remembered all my training in piloting a few years back, lost after my traumatic encounter. "What did you do?" I asked when he removed his hands from my head.

"I just used the Force to help me find the piloting skills you learned and lost in your memories."

"Brilliant, Anakin," Tahiri said appraisingly.

"But I'll still need you, Artoo," I told the droid. Artoo whistled a reply, and started off toward one of the three ships. He suddenly began beeping frantically. 

"What's wrong?" I asked the droid.

Artoo twittered worriedly.

"I don't see anything wrong with the ship," I told him as he was socketed up behind the cockpit.

We clambered into our ships and shot off into space, away from the lights of Coruscant.

"Lunaris, are you alright in there?" I heard Tahiri's voice next to my ear. 

"Yeah, I am."

"We should be traveling in hyperspace in approximately 20 seconds," Master Anakin's voice joined in. "Activate your jumps to the Tatooine system."

"Artoo, which button should I press?" I asked worriedly. 

YOU DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT IT, Artoo assured me.

"If you say so," I murmured.

"I just want to remind you, 'Ris." 'Ris? When was the last time he ever called me that? "I've done your clearance for you and Tahiri, so we're cleared to be able to get into hyperspace and all. And if ever we get separated on Korriban, use your wrist comm to communicate to either one of us or to Artoo, okay?"

"Yes, Master."

"We'll be in hyperspace for about less than a day," Tahiri reminded me. "So if you get bored, you should've brought something to do."

"Thanks for the concern," I said sarcastically. If Tahiri noted the sarcasm, she didn't have a chance to say so, as Anakin had already started the countdown.

"Reaching hyperspace in five."

I gripped the side of my chair. "I hope you're sure about this, Artoo," I said quietly. I still had my doubts, even if Master Anakin made me remember what I'd learned in piloting.

"Four."

POSITIVE, LUNARIS, the display blinked.

"Three."

"Did you calculate the jumps in the series to get me to Tatooine?"

"Two."

AFFIRMATIVE. STOP WORRYING.

"One."

I opened my eyes in time to watch the stars flash past me outside the glass.

Anakin sat back in his chair to think.

Tahiri had arrived just a few days ago, and she'd changed a lot. Gone was her noisy chatter and talkative babbling. Gone was the unruly hair, the green eyes that sparkled too brightly, the shoeless feet, the childlike way of thinking. Gone was the little girl Anakin knew. Instead, there was a woman. 

She would be turning sixteen any day now. Anakin regretted the fact that he had not spent more time knowing her better, or watching her grow up alongside him. She wore sandals that compromised for the shoes she had to wear on Coruscant. She spoke a lot, but not as often as she did as a child, and not as loud. Her green eyes had turned a deeper shade of jade, and her hair was tied up more often now.  She was different. The same Tahiri, yet somehow different.

As children, they'd been best friends. But they weren't children anymore. He couldn't quite distinguish his feelings for her. He never paid much attention to them until she arrived. Now, everytime he was about to see her or talk to her, he made an effort to make sure everything was perfect, from how he looked to what he said. It wasn't the same anymore. He felt awkward and clumsy around her. He decided, after this mission was over, to pull Tahiri aside and sincerely talk to her, to get to know her better.

Lunaris had always been beside him, to learn things from him. He remembered when he chose her as his apprentice at the Temple. She was young then, about eleven, with her black hair cropped short, required of young female Jedi candidates (A/N: I have no idea if this is true.) and the sharp amethyst eyes that caught his when he watched her combat her fellow Jedi candidates. He remembered the joy in those eyes when she was chosen. He remembered everything he taught her so far, and he remembered everything he learned about her.

Fast forward three years later. He taught her a lot, but she still had so much to learn about being a Jedi, and the ways of the Force. He told her things he didn't usually tell others. She was the only one other than Tahiri who knew his deepest fears and secrets. He was comfortable and more like himself whenever he was with her than with anyone else, even Tahiri, but he surprised himself when he realized that he didn't know everything about his apprentice, especially when she told him about her father. He knew he'd have to protect her now, more than ever.  

He knew that she loved him, like the older brother she told him she wished she had. And he loved her back, though it never crossed his mind to tell her so.

REACHING REALSPACE IN APPROXIMATELY FORTY-SEVEN STANDARD MINUTES, the astromech droid told him.

_Already? _"Thanks, Fiver," Anakin said. He turned on the communication holoscreen and looked at Tahiri and Lunaris on two different screens. "Are you ladies alright?" he said, grinning jauntily at them.

"I am, but Lunaris is asleep," Tahiri jerked a thumb over her shoulder. 

"Am not," Lunaris protested, yawning widely. "I did have a nice dream, though."

"Good for you." Tahiri said.

"Just a reminder, we'll be reaching realspace in about forty-five minutes," he told them. "Then we'll have to find Korriban on our own from Tatooine. Did you have a hard time?" he asked Lunaris.

"No, Artoo helped me." She smiled.

When the stars rushed back into existence, Anakin opened his holoscreen again. "Welcome to Tatooine," he said. "Prepare to shift to manual piloting. Just flick the red switch up, 'Ris," he told his apprentice when she began to search frantically around the system indicators.

"Thanks," she replied.

They passed the desert planet of Tatooine, Tahiri's homeland. "I'm never going back there," she told them.

They flew on in concentrated silence as they searched for a similar dry planet nearby. Anakin inserted the datacard into a small slot, and a miniature holographic view of the galaxy appeared on one side of his screen. "Don't mistake Ryloth for Korriban. It should be near it, very close to wild space."

"Er…Master?"

_Oh, no. _"What's wrong this time?"

"I'm getting a series of alarming readouts at one quarter power."

"WHAT? How? Why?"

"I think the cooling system's down. The engine seems to want to overheat."

"Back off to one-eighth power. Divert cooling power from the dead engines." He heard little noises of buttons being pushed and switches being flicked. _She's getting better at this._

"No effect, Master. What do I do?"

"Hold on." Anakin heard laughing noises over the comlink. /_Stop laughing, Tahiri. It isn't funny,_ / he admonished her. "How much power have you got left?"

"Very little, Master."

"How _much?" _

"I was able to get power by switching off all systems except sensors and minimal life support, but it isn't much."

"You've got barely enough to reach Korriban." Anakin said.

"You're in luck, Lunaris," Tahiri said. "A dry, deserted, yellow-colored planet at one o' clock."

Sure enough, Anakin watched as Korriban grew bigger in the viewport. "Adjust your courses," he ordered.

"Master? What do I do?" Lunaris fretted.

"Well…" He hated to break it to her. "With the minimal power you have, you may have to cut off your engine sooner than necessary."

"If I do that, I'd still be in space," she realized, horrified.

"Normal landing procedure is a powered descent, going in with all engines throttled up, decelerating from orbital speed to flying speed, but…"

"But what?"

"Your fighter's sole remaining engine doesn't have enough power to manage that. You have to do it the old-fashioned way." This involved bashing a way through the atmosphere, using air friction instead of engine power to slow your plane.

He heard a defeated sigh. "If I die, Master Anakin, I want you to have my lightsaber."

Goodness. The countdown timer to engine shutoff went to zero too quickly, and I aimed the ship in the right direction for an aero-breaking re-entry. "Artoo, why did I have to get stuck with an undercharged plane?" I moaned.

The ship bucked and shuddered, and the controls tried to leap out of my hands. I grabbed the flight stick in a vise-like grip and forced the ship back into an even keel. It felt like hitting a brick wall, as I felt the stirrings of Korriban's atmosphere on my hull. There was a tearing noise, metal on metal, and something broke clear from the ship. The ship tried to flip over, and it was all I could do to force it back to a level path. But then, the ship seemed lighter now that the thing that broke clear was gone.

There were so many things I forgot to be thankful for, and they all flashed before me for a brief second, letting me forget about my perilous state for just that moment. There were so many things I forgot to do, and one was to tell Master Anakin how I felt for him.

The ship dropped deeper and deeper into Korriban's atmosphere, rocking and screeching and whacking all the way down. WHAM! Something had just broken loose back in the ship's interior. This was not good. 

The ship glided downward into the inky black darkness of Korriban's night sky. I was losing speed and altitude fast. Soon enough, I felt the ship crashing its way through a dense forest, and as soon as it all started, it stopped, making me almost fly out of my char and out my window if I had not been strapped into my chair. I braced myself for any more sudden rippings or explosions, but there was none. 

I allowed myself time to resume breathing, and I released my grip on the flight stick. Relieved that I was alive after that, I bit my lip and cried.

Anakin and Tahiri landed a few meters away from the smoking mess that was Lunaris' X-wing. Before the ship had even landed, Anakin jumped out from the pilot's seat and ran towards the damaged ship. He fought his way through thick shrubbery and found the ship.

He darted towards the cockpit and peered in, relieved that his apprentice was alive, though looking worse for wear. She had a huge gash on her forehead, and she had various cuts and bruises all over her body. He released her crash belt and lifted her up from the seat, carrying her back towards his ship. Tahiri hurried towards him and helped him rest her on the ground. "Get Artoo, and whatever supplies we can use from her ship," he told her.

As soon as she ran off towards the ship, Anakin checked for all her vital signs. He could feel her in the Force, but it was ebbing away quite rapidly. She was close to death. Anakin cradled her in his arms and placed her in a healing trance. Her Force presence was there, but it was very weak, so Anakin transferred some of his energy to her. She opened her mauve-tinted eyes and focused them on Anakin's cold blue ones. She reached up to touch his cheek. "Am I in heaven?" she managed to say. (A/N: Very cliché-ish, but I like it.).

Anakin blushed. "No, but you were almost there," he said. He helped her up to a sitting position. "Your ship crashed, remember?"

"Oh, yeah…"she trailed off, clutching her head. 

"How do you feel?" Anakin asked, placing a bactaid against the gash on her forehead.

"Woozy? I feel fine."

Anakin stood up. "Looks like this mission will have to wait for a bit. We aren't moving until you feel better than you do now."

Lunaris abruptly stood up. Too soon, Anakin thought, as she swayed unsteadily on her feet. He moved to catch her, but she held up a hand. "No. Master, go on without me if you have to. I won't let this mission be held up just because of me and my luck to have been stuck with an undercharged plane."

"We aren't going anywhere without you, especially now that we're on unfamiliar grounds. Besides, Tahiri and I need the rest, too, and the time to find parts for your ship and repair it."

"Fine, then." She dropped back to the ground.

Tahiri arrived moments later, carrying a box of Lunaris' things with R2-D2 in tow. "I managed to find these parts scattered a few meters away from the ship, as well as her things." She motioned to the box she placed on the ground. 

Anakin knelt down. "Are you alright, Artoo?"

Artoo rocked a little on his base and managed a faint, reassuring cheep.

"We won't be going anywhere for a while. Lunaris needs rest, and we have to do whatever we can to fix her ship," Anakin told Tahiri.

"She really needs it," Tahiri said, glancing over Anakin's shoulder at Lunaris' sleeping form.

Anakin picked up his lightsaber. "I'll just have a look around." He turned around and left, Artoo at his side.  
  


The girl was running deeper and deeper into the forest, her black hair whipping back, her eyes on the ground, making sure no twig nor stone blocked her scurrying feet. She then came into a clearing, where a ship was docked, waiting. 

She climbed into the open hatch and was about to close it when a blaster shot nearly singed the top of her head. She looked to see who held the blaster it came from, and saw a familiar-looking hooded man in a black cloak, a red lightsaber in one hand and a blaster in the other. 

_She Force-jumped to the ground and drew out her lightsaber. "Who are you, and what do you want from me?"_

_She couldn't see the man's face, but she felt him sneer at her. "Don't you remember who I am, Lunaris?" he said. "I'm the man who made you fall off the balcony ledge, remember?" He began to circle her, the blaster still outstretched, pointing at her._

_"I remember." This was her father. But…wasn't her father a member of the Peace Brigade and a heavy drinker?"_

_"You think I'm a member of the Peace Brigade and a heavy drinker, don't you?" Lunaris blinked. The man could read minds. "I'm not just that, Lunaris."_

_She narrowed her eyes. "What do you want from me?"_

_"I want you to join me. I want you to stay beside me and take the place of your mother as my right hand maiden. I want you to help the Peace Brigade."_

_"I won't."_

_"I promise you that you'll have your own squadron, like that Kyp Durron has. I promise I'll never lock you up or beat you again. When you live with me, you'll have your own room and whatever you want. I can easily make you the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy…if you join me. "_

_"This doesn't convince me at all. I don't easily submit to your empty promises."_

_"As stubborn as your mother. That's why she got killed, anyway. She was stubborn enough to stay at the Temple, believing she could fight the Brigadiers who wanted to capture the Jedi and present them to the Yuuzhan Vong, until the freighter carrying the occupants of the Temple had long left."_

_"It's quite a story, but whatever you say, Father, I still won't join you."_

_"Don't you see, Lunaris?" The man dropped his blaster on the ground and held his lightsaber instead. Lunaris gripped hers tightly. "The Jedi make everything worse. They want to fight against the Yuuzhan Vong and bring chaos to the galaxy, instead of the peace and order they'd been sworn to protect."_

_"Liar!"_

_"And now Master Skywalker wants you to destroy the scrolls that could be the very thing that could help both the Republic and the Order get rid of the Yuuzhan Vong!"_

_"These are lies, Father!"_

_"Those scrolls can tell you how to raise the spirit of Freedon Nadd, who will help the Jedi destroy the Yuuzhan Vong forces! He will call upon the ancient Sith spirits to combine forces with the Jedi and help bring down the Yuuzhan Vong! And then--"_

_"—the spirits will then take over the leaders of the Republic, which will then result in another chaotic reign of the Dark Side!"_

_"Precisely."_

_"No, Father. I won't let it happen. I went on this mission to destroy the scrolls, and that's what I'm going to do. And I won't join the Peace Brigade, or the Sith Order, or the Dark Side. I know what's in store for me there, and it's a far cry from what you've been promising me. " She pressed the lightsaber off and turned back to the ship, but stopped when she felt a lightsaber being pointed at her._

_"I tried reasoning with you nicely," her father said. "But you refuse my offers. There's only one thing left to do." He raised his lightsaber and swung it down on her._

_Lunaris swiftly turned to deflect the attack and sidestepped to avoid more blows, but her father was too fast for her. He kicked her in the shins and knocked her down on her back, pointing the tip of his lightsaber at her neck._

_"Still play dirty as always, Father," she said, trying to hide the pain she felt._

_"Let me let you in on a little secret, my beautiful daughter. I was the one who led your droid through the Force to ride that ship, the ship that had been fueled up but leaked a bit." She sensed him smile leeringly at her._

_"You made my ship crash! I almost died!" I struggled beneath his lightsaber, but I couldn't move my body. He must have used the Force to hold me down. _

_"No, my dear. I made sure to leave just enough fuel to let you make it through hyperspace and past Tatooine. Of course I won't let my only daughter die," he said mockingly._

_"Why did you do it?"_

_"To convince you that the Jedi are dangerous and careless, and so that you'd quit being a Jedi on your own."_

_"Now that I know that the Jedi aren't behind it, it only managed to convince me all the more to stick with the Order."_

_He looked angry with himself. "If I haven't convinced you now, and if I can never persuade you, I guess there's only one thing left to do." He raised his lightsaber again over her outstretched body._

_Her eyes widened, horrified. She wouldn't be able to avoid this blow. "NO!"_


	8. Seven

Anakin had just come back from investigating the grounds when he heard Tahiri's cry for help. "What's wrong?" he asked frantically, bursting through the clearing they were in.

Tahiri was kneeling beside Lunaris. "She's convulsing. I tried a healing trance, but it didn't work. She was mumbling some incomprehensible words, then her body twitched and started the convulsions." She was wringing her hands on her lap and her face was turning pale, and for a moment she looked briefly like the Tahiri Anakin knew: unsure of herself, yet tried to hide it. He waved the thought away.

"Hold her hand and transfer some of your energy to her. She's having another bad dream." Anakin stayed on the other side and transmitted some of his energy to her through the Force, sensing Tahiri do the same thing. After a while, the convulsions died down, and Lunaris was sleeping peacefully again.

"She's running a slight fever. Get some hot water and a cloth," Anakin said.

Tahiri stood up, but didn't make a move to get the items. "Anakin, I--"

"This is no time to be jealous, Tahiri." Anakin cut her off.

"I'm not jealous. I just don't like being ordered around like a child," she complained, and huffed away.

Anakin sighed. "Artoo, could you _please _get some hot water and a cloth?" Artoo peeped an answer and rolled away.

Anakin watched his sleeping apprentice and started stroking her forehead. He listened to the rise and fall of her steady breathing. "When will your father ever stop tormenting you?" he asked her softly, as though she could hear him. 

I opened my eyes to see Master Anakin bent over me with a cloth in his hands, dabbing gently at my face. "What are you doing?" I rasped, pushing away his hand. 

"You were convulsing, so Tahiri and I used the Force to heal you…a bit. You have a slight fever. That gash on your forehead was pretty serious, but you'll be better by tomorrow."

My hand flew to my head, and much to my surprise, it was gone. "Where is it?" I asked.

"You'll be pretty surprised at how good Tahiri and I are at being medics," he smiled. "What was your dream about?" He put the cloth away.

"My father," I said, clutching my head. "He wanted me to come back to him and turn away from the Jedi Order. He wanted me to go over to the Dark Side. He was a Sith…in my dream…I hope…"

"Why?"

"I think it's because he knows that if I go over to the Dark Side, you'll go after me to try and rescue me…and they'll capture you and convince you to join them…because you're a very strong and powerful Jedi Knight." I wasn't sure at first if that was true, but when I listened to myself explain to Master Anakin, it all made sense. 

He was clenching and unclenching his fists, but I pretended not to notice. "Is that all he said?"

I shook my head. "He was about to kill me with his lightsaber, and I stepped aside in time to avoid the blow, but he kicked me in the shins and let me fall to the ground while holding down my body with the Force." I pulled up my robes until my knee, and there was a very mean-looking purple-and-blue bruise.

Master Anakin winced. "Ouch."

"He told me that he was the one who led Artoo to the ship that had been properly refueled, but had a leak…made by him. He did this because he wanted to convince me to consider the Jedi careless and dangerous, and to reject the Jedi Order on my own."

I rested my head on my knees and was silent for a while. I didn't hear Master Anakin stand up and leave.

Anakin walked angrily into the forest, brushing shrubs and low branches to clear a path for him using the Force. He kept his eyes on the floor and was too wrapped up in his thoughts that he didn't notice a tall figure coming up towards him until he smacked right into her. 

Tahiri rubbed her head. "Watch where you're going."

Anakin massaged his chin. "Sorry, Tahiri. I was too busy thinking to pay attention to where I was going."

Tahiri didn't take offense, as she normally would, and instead noticed his listless tone. "It's about Lunaris, right?"

Anakin merely nodded. "She had another bad dream about her father." He didn't tell her that it involved him, too. He still had to think it out before he wanted to tell it to anyone else.

Tahiri patted his back. "You really care about her, do you?" she asked softly.

Anakin shrugged. "She's the second person whom I really care about, whom I've sworn to teach and to learn from and to protect and to trust and to love as much as life itself."

"Who's the first?" Tahiri asked, hoping she sounded casual.

"You."

"Oh." Tahiri blushed, but luckily, it was too dark for Anakin to see.

They started to walk a bit. The silence between them was anything but comforting.

Tahiri took a jab at conversation. "You just left Lunaris there?"

"I don't think she noticed I left," Anakin said shortly.

"Oh," she said again. "Anakin, you--"

"I know I haven't been doing my role as your "best friend" lately, especially ever since Lunaris' problem, so I want to apologize and make up for all the lost time."

"No, Anakin, I completely understand, I--"

"You're telling me you understand, but I sense that you just don't want to tell me what you really feel. I want to prove to you that I still remember who you are, and who you are to me." He pulled out a small, crudely wrapped box from somewhere beneath his robes. "Happy birthday, Tahiri."

The expression on Tahiri's face was priceless. "Thank you!" she cried, throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him. "You finally remembered on your own, after three years of receiving gifts really late or at the wrong time of the year." She tore away at the brown paper the package was wrapped in.

Anakin scuffled his foot guiltily and couldn't bring himself to tell her that Lunaris was the one who had reminded him about it, a few weeks earlier. She constantly nagged about her birthday everyday and insisted that he buy or make a gift for her, wrap it himself, and bring it to her personally on Yavin 4. He made a mental note to himself to always listen to Lunaris. 

Tahiri pulled out an intricately carved wooden pendant. "Did you make this yourself?" she asked in awe.

"Yeah, I did." It was true. He'd made the pendant after Lunaris suggested he give a gift he made himself. He made another mental note to make one for Lunaris. "I was hoping you could place it on your necklace, next to the pendant with your parents' thumbprints on it." Tahiri's parents had died long ago when she was a child, and their thumbprints pasted and dried on a smooth stone became a pendant she always wore on a silver chain around her neck, as well as the only memories she had of them.

"Of course." She unclasped the chain at the back of her neck and slid the pendant next to her parents' prints. "Thank you, Anakin, you have no idea how much it means to me." She stood up on her tiptoes and kissed him again.

Anakin and Tahiri walked back to the clearing hand in hand, and found Lunaris fixing something in the Artoo Detoo's circuit placed behind it. "Stand still, you bucket of bolts," she was saying, inserting a screwdriver in the droid. "How will I ever get to fixing your Holonet connection?"

"Looks like your apprentice learned more than lightsaber techniques from you," Tahiri whispered to Anakin.

"What can I say? She's learning from a pro at mechanics," he whispered back, watching Lunaris amusedly.

Artoo let out a series of protesting whistles and tweeps. "No, it isn't working at all. I can't send my message to Master Skywalker at all through you!" Finally, she hinged back the outer metal covering. "There you go, you rolling lump of metal. See if you still can't send it."

"Send what?" Anakin asked, finally making his presence known.

"Sithspawn!" she exclaimed, throwing her screwdriver into the air. "What the—oh." She grinned, embarrassed.

"What message?" Anakin asked again.

"Well, I received a holographic message from Master Skywalker, asking about our current condition and all. I told him we'd made it, but my ship ran out of fuel and I had to use the crash landing method. I told him we were all fine, and there were no major injuries."

Anakin tapped his foot. "What did I tell you about lying?"

"But Master, I didn't lie! There really weren't any major injuries. I'm okay now, aren't I? And I HAD ran out of fuel. And I didn't tell him everything. I felt that it ought to come from you than from me."

"Fine, then. I'll send him a message when he asks again."

"But when I asked Artoo to send the message back to him, it wouldn't send. So I figured there must be something wrong in him." She glanced at the little droid, which was rolling back and forth.

"Artoo, how did she ask you?" Anakin asked as Lunaris rolled her eyes. Artoo beeped complainingly. Anakin sighed.

"Lunaris, there is such as thing as politeness, you know. Artoo," he said, turning towards it. "Will you _please_ send Lunaris' message?"

Artoo replied in the affirmative. Tahiri was holding back giggles behind her hand, which was smothered immediately with a swift nudge to the ribs from Anakin.

Lunaris reddened. "I'll keep that in mind."

Anakin let go of Tahiri's hand and pulled Lunaris aside, mumbling an excuse to Tahiri. "Thanks for the suggestions and constant naggings on Tahiri's birthday and gift."

Lunaris glanced over her shoulder at Tahiri. "She liked it?"

"She loved it. Thanks so much."

"Sure," she shrugged. "Anytime."

Anakin opened his mouth to say something else, but decided against it and closed his mouth when he saw his apprentice going back towards Tahiri. "We start the mission tomorrow," he announced as he walked up to them. "I haven't been able to look around too much, since it's too dark, but I think sunlight from Tatooine's twin suns can provide us with enough light to see where we're going."

I only had a few hours left to sleep till sunrise, but I couldn't. I was afraid of what dreams I would dream the moment I closed my eyes.  When would this torture ever end? Ever since I started having dreams about my father, I was afraid to close my eyes, for fear of the physical and emotional pain it would bring me. Everywhere I went, he followed me. Everything I do, he knows. 

My gaze lingered over to Tahiri's sleeping form beside me. She had a small smile on her face, and her hand was loosely holding the pendant Master Anakin gave her. _She is so lucky, _I thought enviously. No nightmares to haunt her, no horrifying dreams of a maniacal father. She had her own things to worry about, but at least they didn't follow her, even as she slept.

My eyes then fell on Master Anakin's dozing figure, a few feet away from us. He insisted on this, saying he could protect us if ever something "suddenly jumps out of the woods to eat you up." Maybe he could help me get some sleep…as well as protect me.

I crawled over to him as silently as I could and shook him gently. He turned over to face me and muttered something incomprehensible. "What's wrong, Lunaris?" he muttered.

"I can't sleep, Master. I'm not sleepy." _/And I'm afraid of what I might see when I sleep, /_ I told him through the Force.

Master Anakin looked at me through heavy-lidded eyes for a long time, and I had no idea whether he was going to go back to sleep or think I was insane or get mad at me for waking him up at such an unholy hour. Finally, he moved a bit to the side and patted the space beside him. "Here. Sleep here."

It was highly unlikely for him to suggest such a thing, and I gaped at him for a few moments until he said, "What? I don't know how else I can help you other than this."

I slowly lay down, with my back against his chest and my head resting on the crook of his arm. I felt the steady rise and fall of his breathing against my back, and I thought him asleep until I felt his hand slip into mine, his arm resting on my side. _/Goodnight_, / he told me, somewhat sleepily. 

_/Goodnight. / _Surprisingly, I slept straight through the rest of the night.


	9. Eight

**Author's note:** Thanks to chord and charm-school dropout for helping me in this and the next chapter. Thanks to the Star Wars books I own, which I took some information from.

By the way, I was really sleepy when I made this, so there might be some typos, and it might not sound so…nice. And one topic may go to another and back again. So…sorry!

I woke up to the sound of Master Anakin's voice. "We have to leave her, Artoo, she's still asleep."

I jumped up. "Not anymore. You aren't leaving me." I started to fix myself up.

Master Anakin sighed impatiently. "You don't understand, Lunaris. I have to leave you here. But I promise I'll be back."

I clipped my lightsaber to my belt. "I don't understand because you aren't explaining anything to me. And where's Tahiri?" I hadn't noticed her absence until I saw the space beside Master Anakin was clear of a yellow-haired head.

"That's why you wouldn't understand." He pushed a small button on Artoo's side, and a three-dimensional holographic form of Tahiri appeared (A/N: Think Princess Leia in A New Hope).

"Anakin," Tahiri's voice was tinny over Artoo's small speakers. "I'm going to find the Yuuzhan Vong base and get inside. I'll try to get whatever information I can about how much the Yuuzhan Vong have already gotten from the mausoleum, if any. I do have a lead; the whole base surrounds the entrance to the mausoleum; no doubt they'd want to know what's inside. I'll also try to know the layout and the grounds of the base itself, plus where the main controls are and who are the supreme officers and all in the base. I'll be putting the information on my wrist comm and I'll be sending it to Artoo everyday. But you can't send anything to me unless I enter a password on my wrist comm, so don't even try to discourage me through holographic messages, Solo." She smiled. "I've almost been transformed into a Yuuzhan Vong when I was captured before, and I still remember how to speak and communicate with them without a tizowrym, which makes me the best person for the job. I'll just pretend to be a slave prisoner. Don't worry about me, Solo; just find the base and then help me. If you're listening, Lunaris, please take care of Anakin. Don't let him out of your sight, now." Tahiri then vanished.

"I perfectly understand everything she said, but I don't understand why you have to leave me." I folded my arms across my chest.

"Because she's my best friend, 'Ris. I have to go after her."

"And leave me here? Are you taking for granted that I'm your apprentice? Just because I'm not her best friend gives me no right to go along with you and help you? I'm going with you anyway whether you like it or not." I hoisted my knapsack onto my back. "Lead the way."

"You can't come with me, 'Ris. It's too dangerous. And too risky. And you're still not prepared."

I narrowed my eyes and looked at him straight in the eye. "You underestimate me too much, Master Solo. You don't know how much more "dangerous" and "risky" were the missions I've been to before, even before I was your apprentice. And furthermore, the reason why I'm not "prepared" is entirely your fault. You don't teach me well enough if you think I'm not "prepared". Why else would you bring me on this mission anyway if I weren't prepared? Aren't I here to learn?"

Master Anakin sighed and threw up his arms in exasperation. "I give up! You're coming with me." With that, he strode off into the forest.

I leaned down to Artoo's height. "One point for me." Artoo just beeped and rolled away.

Anakin stomped ahead, not caring whether Lunaris was behind him or not. She had hit a spot, and she hit it hard.

It was true that she wasn't prepared because it was his fault. He hadn't been training her as hard as he was supposed to, and she still had too much to learn. But it wasn't his fault she had such a sharp mind—and tongue—so he didn't blame her for anything and kept his mouth shut instead.

As soon as he looked up from his thinking, he faced a large mountain he didn't recall seeing the day before. "Artoo," he called over his shoulder. "How will you get up the mountain?" He certainly wasn't in the mood to carry the droid on his back. 

Artoo tweeped a reply and a pair of booster rockets emerged from his cylindrical body. 

"Great. Go on ahead to the top and see if there's a flat spot there we can rest." Artoo complied, and shot off to the top.

Lunaris caught up to him. "How are we getting up there?" 

Anakin pulled out a rope from his rucksack. "With this." He tied one end of the rope to his body and started to climb up the mountain.

"What? No Force? I thought the Force was a tool," she said, tying the other end of the rope around her waist and following his lead.

"It's a tool I'd love to use to untie this rope from my waist and let you plummet down to your death," he muttered.

"What?" Lunaris said from below.

"Err…" Even her hearing was sharp, he thought. "Nothing! I just said that it's a tool because...because...we Jedi can use it!" _Lame excuse, Solo, but she doesn't have to know that. As long as she shuts up._

Sweat poured down his face, and his tunic stuck to his back, but he kept going on. Tatooine's twin suns seemed to be melting them, and the heat was unbearable, but finally, Anakin, reached the top. R2-D2 was waiting for him, resting underneath a shade provided by the mountain's rock formation. Exhausted, he absent-mindedly untied the rope around his waist.

"Master Anakin!" Lunaris' voice echoed from below. "Why did you let go of the rope?!"

_Vaping moffs! _He scrambled to catch the end of the rope from falling off the edge in vain. He peered over the edge to see his apprentice dangling helplessly from a protruding rock. He could see fear written on her face.

"Grab my hand!" he yelled to her, and extended his hand as far as he could. _I'll take back all the nasty things I said and thought, but please let her live. _

Lunaris made a feeble attempt to seize his hand. "I can't!" she shouted back. "You're too far!"

Anakin tried to lean out further. "If I lean out anymore than I am now, I'll fall over the edge!"

Lunaris was silent. "Well, this is the end, is it? It's the end of the line for me. Sorry for saying all those mean and nasty things. You were a good Master to me." And she let go of the rock.

"Lunaris!" He could jump down after her, just like he did when she was falling off her balcony, but the altitude of the mountain was too high. He wasn't that strong in the Force. He might as well die along with her. _No. Not until we've found Tahiri._

Instead, he reached out and closed his eyes. He imagined her being pulled up, back to him, through the Force. _Come on, come on…_within seconds, he felt a firm grasp on his hand. Without pausing to think, he pulled her back up using the Force and felt a sudden weight land on his body. He hugged her tight and kissed her on the forehead. _Thank the Maker. She's safe._

"Err…Master? I-I'm fine," she stammered. She was taken aback at this sudden form of affection.

She was surprised even more when he didn't let go. 

_She almost thought it would be the end of her._

_It was nighttime, and she was sleeping beside him. At least, she was supposed to; she couldn't sleep. She just stared at his face, watching him as he slept, trying to get lulled by his deep and steady breathing. In the background, she could hear a few beeps emitted by the astromech droid as it was on standby mode._

_After her near-death experience, he refused to let her out of his sight. He didn't want her to go to one side of the cliff by herself because she could easily be pushed by the wind and blown right off the edge. He didn't want her to go off to a corner by herself to meditate, because something bad could happen to her. When she asked him what could possibly happen to her in a small corner, he reddened and told her to stop being so impertinent._

_She felt a slight tug on her hand. Even in his sleep, he didn't want he wandering off, so he held her hand as he slept._

_She didn't know what to make out of his over-protectiveness for her. Sometimes she was worried, that she'd be spoiled and over dependent on him because of that. Sometimes she felt strangled, since there were a lot of things she couldn't do. _

_Sometimes, though, she felt really lucky. If he was overprotective of her, it showed that he loved her and cared for her. It was something she had never experienced in the few but traumatizing years she had with her father. _

_She brought her hand up to his face and gently traced out his features; there were no sharp corners or flawing blemishes. Her fingers ran smoothly along his profile. She inhaled his scent; a mixture of the soap he often used, and the subtle whiff of the oil he applied on his hair. Clean, yet intoxicating._

_Tenderly, so he wouldn't wake up, she placed her hand on his cheek and stroked it. The simple beauty that radiated from him awed her._

_She couldn't believe that this man was her Master, to whom she owed her whole life. She greatly admired his skills as a Jedi Knight, and someday wished she could be like him. It was said that he could be the next most powerful Jedi in the galaxy, and she was proud that the man they often talked about was her Master. _

_She felt so out of place, yet right as if she belonged there. She didn't want to have to sleep beside him, in the belief that she would be rid of her dreams if he stayed beside her. She felt like she was being treated like a child that way; but she felt as if she was meant to be...treated that way. That she had to be protected from her own dreams, from things in her head that could be real. _

_That was one of the things she loved about him: his gentle, caring nature, which made her feel loved and accepted, a far cry from how she was treated when she still lived with her father._

_Her eyes followed her fingers, which had then traveled to his arms, toughened and muscled through years of lightsaber practice and combat. She closed her eyes and imagined what it would be like to be held by them. Instantly, she felt enveloped in the Force, and calmness spread through their bodies. She felt a strong sense of security, and she felt as though he had already rid her of her nightmares, even as he slept._

_She gave a tiny squeak that ended her small daydream, and his eyelids fluttered open. "You still can't sleep?" he asked her quietly._

_"I'm afraid of what I might see," she whispered. She lowered her gaze, ashamed._

_"My moonchild…" he murmured, and gripped her hand tighter. He brushed away strands of black hair that had strayed to her face. "I'm sorry," he said. "I can't get rid of your dreams."_

_"It isn't your fault," she said softly. "Fate is cruel to me."_

_"Fate isn't to me," he said. "It brought me to you, so I could protect you, and take care of you, and teach you things." _And love you, _he almost added._

_She smiled sadly at him and closed her eyes. "I don't want to wake up alone. Don't leave me."_

_He pulled her close to him, as if afraid she would suddenly be taken away from him. "I won't."_


	10. Nine

**Author's notes: **Thank you chord! Thank you charm school drop-out! I'll never forget the debt I owe you two.

Anakin stood at the edge of the cliff, his hands behind his back, gazing at the two suns of Tatooine rising in the distance. This was the best time to be awake and to meditate. He closed his eyes and reached out into the Force. 

He wished that he could rid Lunaris of her dreams. He remembered how tightly she'd clung to him as she woke up, crying, from her dream. He remembered telling her soothing words and coaxing her to tell him about another dream she had of her father. He remembered wiping away the tears that coursed down her cheeks, as she haltingly told the story of her dream that night. He remembered the anger he felt towards her father; because of the way he haunted her dreams. And he remembered rocking her back to sleep, whispering calming words and enveloping her in the Force.

He sensed Lunaris' presence coming up, then leaving behind him. "Don't go," he said, without opening his eyes.

"I didn't want to disturb you," she murmured.

"Your presence is soothing," he assured her. 

He felt her reach for his hand with hesitation, and in that slight moment, reached out toward her with the Force, urging her...

A sudden whirr and beep caused Lunaris to withdraw her hand, awkwardly avoiding Anakin's eyes.. Artoo rolled towards Anakin and bleeped informingly. "You have a _live Holonet message_ right now from _Uncle Luke_? Let me take it, Artoo."

A shrill toot and a click, and Luke Skywalker's holographic form stood in front of Anakin. "How is your mission coming along? I got Lunaris' message.  Is she alright? What's happening out there?"

Anakin glanced at Lunaris, who had then chosen that moment to fix her things, well away from Anakin and Luke. "She's fine. She got a huge cut on her forehead, but we were able to heal it." In a lower voice, he added, "She's been having her nightmares again about her father, and they're getting worse." He quickly recounted the dreams Lunaris told him to Luke. 

"That's one thing I wanted to tell you. Your father and Jaina--"

"They're back? Jaina and Mom and Dad? Since when?" Leia Organa and Han Solo had just returned from another meeting with the Senate, to plead for the Jedi's safety in the galaxy.

"Yesterday. I filled them in on where you were and whom you were with. As a matter of fact, it's your mother who insisted on paying for this Holonet message. Who was I to refuse?" He shook his head. " Typical of Leia."

Anakin grinned. It _was _pretty typical of his mom to do that. "What about Dad and Jaina?"

"When I told them about Lunaris' dreams, they set to work on this machine, built specially for Lunaris' purpose. She and another person willing enough will go inside her dreams and help destroy whatever's haunting her in there."

"I'll go," Anakin automatically said, though in the back of his mind he wondered what made his dad and Jaina suddenly work on this…contraption.

"I was hoping you'd say that," said Luke. "You could think of it as a sort of mission, and this time, Lunaris won't be disappointed, since it'll be just the two of you to share the glory. By the way, where is Tahiri?"

Anakin briefly told Luke about Tahiri's sudden voluntary decision to go to the Yuuzhan Vong base. "I don't know what's gotten into her, Uncle," he said. "I don't think she's mad, or obliged to go or anything."

"Think about that later," Luke said. "Right now, you and Lunaris will have to look for the base…and Tahiri. Good luck. May the Force be with you."

"May the Force be with you, too." Luke's holographic image then vanished. "Thanks, Artoo." The droid gave a short whistle and rolled back to Lunaris.

Anakin walked over to his apprentice. "We're going to have to leave now if we want to find the base and Tahiri right away."

"Hold on," she said, clipping her lightsaber in place and lifting up her bag. "There. Let's go."

The two went to the edge of the cliff and stopped. Artoo had gone on down ahead and was currently waiting for them below. "I've got this all figured out. When I count to three, we jump."

Lunaris gawked at him. "Are you _insane? _After what happened to me yesterday?"

"We use the Force to help cushion our landing. We'll support each other while falling." He'd done this with Tahiri in an elevator shaft before; he had to get it right again this time.

"You haven't taught me this yet." Lunaris gulped.

"Well, now is the best time to learn, isn't it? Experience is the mother of knowledge!" he said. "One…"

"I promise to always practice my lightsaber techniques everyday …" she mumbled.

"Two…"

"I promise never to be mean to all the children at the academy…"

"Three!" Like clockwork, master and apprentice jumped from the edge and down to the forest below. 

Anakin reached out to Lunaris in the Force, and she automatically reached back, the two of them clicking as though they had never been apart, so intensely it actually frightened him. They fell in a sort of lazy way, Anakin supporting Lunaris using the Force, and she slowing his fall. It was a game he and Tahiri had often played as children, and now that she wasn't with them, he felt he ought to play it with his apprentice.

We touched down safely on the ground, with no broken bones. I took a moment to collapse gratefully on the ground. "I'm never leaving you again!" I said to the grass, breathing in its fresh scent.

Master Anakin laughed. "You're not very used to this," he said. 

He let me lay down there for a while until a sharp toot from Artoo reminded us of the mission. I groaned and picked myself up from the ground. "It's too soon to start going," I said as Master Anakin helped me get up.

"We're just going to have to think of Tahiri and how much Yuuzhan Vong butt we're going to have to kick and the future of the entire galaxy in our hands," he said, and started to walk into the woods.

That's not exactly a comforting thought, but nevertheless, I followed him anyway.

"I think I may have found a way to get rid of your dreams," Master Anakin suddenly said.

"What?" I almost tripped over a tree root. 

"Well, actually, my dad and Jaina did. Uncle Luke told them about your dreams, and they were able to make this sort of machine that allows the dreamer and someone else to get inside the…alternate reality."

"Alternate reality?"

"Dreamland." Master Anakin shrugged. "The dreamer and someone else can do whatever they want to in the dream. They have control over themselves in there."

"So…me and some other person are going inside my dreams? To what?"

"Destroy your father. Protect you from him."

"And…I have a feeling that that person is you…right?"

"You learn fast."

A few hours later, Lunaris begged Anakin to stop and rest for a while. "Please, Master, I'm not as strong as you are."

"Sorry," he apologized. "But we're going to have to make it fast. At this rate, we'll never get to Tahiri on time. For all I know, she might be in another shaper laboratory, and I'm going to have to rescue her again." He slumped down under a tree.

"'I'?" Lunaris raised her eyebrow.

"Sorry, I meant 'we'."

He watched Lunaris as she untangled her Padawan braid and redid it, her long fingers moving swiftly along the black strands, weaving them into a neat and even plait. "You know," he suddenly said. "I wish Tahiri didn't have to grow up."

She abruptly stopped, her hands halfway down to her waist, as was the length of her hair. "What makes you say that?" He was telling her something important, something that had been tormenting at him, and she knew she had to listen, or it may never come again.

"She's grown up too fast. When I last saw her, she left for on Yavin 4, to help rebuild the Jedi Temple. Almost a year passed without seeing each other, and I took for granted that she would be the same old Tahiri I always knew: loud, talkative, dependable and cheerful. But when I saw her again, just recently, it hurt a lot to realize how much she'd already grown, and how much I'd missed out on it all."

"I knew I loved her, when I first kissed her on the Yag'Dhul space station and when she left for Yavin 4. I always thought I did, until she arrived. She's changed a whole lot, and I can't be myself anymore around her. Maybe I loved the old Tahiri, the one I rescued from the Yuuzhan Vong almost a year ago, but I don't know if I can still love the new Tahiri: the one who's so self-assured, so perfect, so serious, and so…gloomy. There's this gloomy feeling about her, and although I sense it isn't my fault, I somehow know that I'm included in it all."

"When she went to Yavin 4, I envisioned her to grow up to be this woman, this person whom I knew I'd love and marry and have children with. I even had her personality ready: still the old Tahiri, but with a lot more…confidence and happiness. I guess I had fallen in love with this version of Tahiri I expected her to be. And I always thought we were really…meant to be. But when she came back to Coruscant and she was nothing like the Tahiri I'd imagined in my head, it hurt so much to realize that she won't be the woman I thought she would be. And I don't know if I can love her now. I can accept her, and I can still say that she's my best friend in the whole world, and I can still say that I love her as a best friend, but that's all. I don't know if I can ever love her, the way I did almost a year ago. I guess we really weren't meant for each other."

Lunaris tied up the end of the braid and moved over to stay beside him. "It isn't your fault she's changed so much."

"But I wasn't with her when she…grew up. Maybe I'd still love her that way, then."

"You can't stop change the way you can't stop the twin suns from rising. Master Anakin, I believe that everything is settled through fate. They don't work directly by telling us to go this way or that way. It's our choices that determine our destiny. It's just fate that surprises us along the way. If it was Tahiri's choice to stay in Yavin 4 to help rebuild the Temple, that's part of her destiny. If you chose to stay on Coruscant to help Master Skywalker, that's your destiny. If Tahiri wanted to go back to the praxeum, that's her choice, and a part of her destiny. But fate starts to work here when you realized how much she's grown up, or how disappointed you were when she wasn't the Tahiri you knew anymore. It's destiny if you choose to accept who she is but not love her the same way you did, but it's fate if you also realize that she may not be the right one for you."

Anakin lifted his head from his hands. "You really think so?"

She smiled at him. "Fate tells me to say I know so."

"Ah, but it's your destiny if you choose to tell me that you do know."

"You're toying around with my words, now. That isn't very nice." She stuck her tongue out at him.

"Fate says I shouldn't be nice to you today." He grinned.

"Oh yeah? Right now, fate's telling me we really ought to go right now if you want to save Tahiri. Of course, whether you decide or not to rescue her is all a part of your destiny." 

He stood up and extended a hand to help her up. "Let's go. I think I want to have her back, old or new Tahiri."

Anakin had barely taken a few steps forward when Artoo whistled lengthily. "Tahiri's sent you a message?" he said, practically diving over to Artoo. He could feel Lunaris rolling her eyes behind his back, but he ignored it. "What'd she say?"

Tahiri's hologram hovered before them. "I was able to get in the base and sneak around for a bit, before they captured me and threw me into prison. They recognized me as the Jedi who'd been shaped before, and I don't know what they're going to do with me this time." She pressed a button on her wrist comm, and two holographic windows showing a map and a three-dimensional layout of the base appeared beside her. She pointed to the map. "This is how you're going to find the base. If you had climbed up some sort of mountain, that's the right way. Just follow the map. I sent Artoo a larger, easier-to-read version of it, so you'll see it better. And this--"she pointed to the three-dimensional layout—"is the Yuuzhan Vong Base. There are only three main buildings, and a battleground on the outside for I don't know what. Most probably for execution purposes, but I'd rather not think about it. The main power control room is in the dome-shaped structure in the middle, and it's guarded by a whole bunch of warriors and a shaper and her adept. I don't know why the shaper's there, though."

She pressed something else on her wrist comm, and the two holograms disappeared. "I've sent whatever information I have to Artoo which I might have forgotten to mention now. You have to come here right away, Anakin, they're starting to get deeper inside the mausoleum. I don't know when they might find the scrolls, and if they'll figure out how to use them. I don't know what they're going to do to me, too, but that's not important now. Hurry, Anakin, I'm counting on you. Good luck, and may the Force be with you." The holographic message ended there. 

"What do we do now, Master?" Lunaris said.

"What else? Use the map she sent to find that base." Whether Tahiri had changed or not didn't matter now. He was her best friend, and he had to find her.

"We have to stop here," Lunaris said to Anakin. They had been following the holographic map leading to the Yuuzhan Vong base, but night had already fallen, and it was too dark to see anything.

"We can't." Anakin refused to stop. "We have to find the base right away. Who knows what might have happened to Tahiri? They may have found those scrolls already, and are probably figuring out how to use it at this very moment. Besides, half a mile and we're there! Come on, 'Ris… 'Ris?"

She had fallen to the ground, gasping for breath. "I think…you forgot…" she managed to choke out.

"Forgot what?"

"If I'm…too tired…can't breathe…" She clawed frantically at something in her robes, her lips and fingers turning blue. "Medicine…please get…"

"Sith spit!" How could he have forgotten? If she'd been overworked, or if she was too tired, her lungs would refuse to take in anymore air and stop working. The last time he saw her like this was when he forced her to continue practicing her lightsaber techniques, well after midnight. Luckily, she had already anticipated it and had already drunk her medicine before she got worse. "Hold on, I'm getting it." He dropped down to his knees and looked inside her robes for anything that could pass for the medicine she used…anything.

Finally, he pulled out a red liquid inside a clear glass container. "Is this it?" he asked her, cradling her head in his arms. She weakly nodded. 

Anakin only had less than a minute left before the oxygen would make her brain stop working and cause permanent damage…if she still lived. He lifted the flask to her lips and poured the liquid in, tilting her head back a bit so she could swallow it. A drop managed to escape from her mouth and ran down the side of her cheek; Anakin was faintly reminded of blood…he shuddered. He didn't want to think about it now.

She jolted and coughed, causing some of the red liquid to stain her black robes. Color was returning back to her face, and her lips and fingers turned to their usual hue. Anakin took her by the shoulders and shook her. "Are you alright?"

"I would if you'd please stop shaking me." He instantly let go of her and hugged her instead. "I'm so sorry, I honestly forgot, 'Ris, I shouldn't have been so insistent, I should've stopped when you asked me to, I'm so sorry, I--"

"It's okay, Master, I'm fine. You don't have to worry, it wasn't your fault, really, it wasn't." She sat up and returned the flask into her robes. "We're just going to have to rest here for tonight, can we?"

"Of course," he stammered. He looked around. "Where's Artoo?"

"I asked him if he could get some wood," Lunaris said, turning on her lightsaber. "We're going to need a fire, so my lightsaber crystal's energy won't be exhausted."

"A fire? How do we do that? We haven't got anything to light it with." Artoo had already returned a large pile of wood and set it down on the ground.

"Like this." Lunaris held two sticks and rubbed them rapidly against each other. Within minutes, a fire was burning merrily on the pile of wood.

"How the--?"

"I read it in a book in the Jedi Archives. Pretty neat, don't you think?" She reached for her lightsaber and thumbed the toggle. 

"Yeah…neat." He wished he thought of it first.

_She was lain down beside him again, and this time, it was he who couldn't sleep._

_She'd narrowly avoided death's grip again, and it was still his fault. He should have listened to her when he was supposed to, but he had been his stubborn self and refused to pay attention. He was failing in his duties as her master to protect her and look after her, and he bitterly blamed himself for it. _

_He looked down at his sleeping apprentice, safe for the moment from hallucinations of her father. Soon, he would be stirred awake by her muffled cries, and between sobs and whimpers, she would retell the dreams she'd just seen. Then, he would have to soothe her and help her get back to sleep, with the unpromised reassurance that she would never dream about her father again. She'd cling to him trustingly, her sobs drawing to small sniffles and tempestuous quiverings, then finally falling back to sleep. _

_He didn't want to see her suffer anymore than she deserved. If there was anyone who deserved pain, it was he. He who he blamed for causing the death of a family friend, he who had destroyed so many lives by using the Force, he who had almost caused his apprentice to almost die twice._

_He shook his head clear of those thoughts. Right now was not the time to contemplate on the past. Right now, he had a duty to do: to protect his young Padawan. _

_He brushed away the strands of hair that had drifted to her face. She was so different from the young woman he used to love. She wasn't talkative, cheerful and optimistic all the time, but she wasn't self-regarding or overly attention-aware, either. He had to admit, he had a high regard for her. She was strong-willed because she didn't let her bad relationship with her father be an excuse for her for people to fell sorry for her. She was emotionally strong because she continued living, despite the tribulations that would often surround her. She hated pity, and she told him so a lot often. He also admired her because she helped him more often than he did her, and he felt grateful for that._

_It was then that he realized that her features weren't as imperfect as he thought when he last looked at it. He could tell her eyes, although closed, had lightened a few tones and had become larger in shape. Her nose wasn't so big as he said it was when he used to tease her about it; the freckles scattered on it were gone, too. Her hair wasn't so unruly as he last remembered it; it lay behind her back in black silky waves, and had a fresh, after shower scent to it. Hesitantly, he reached out and touched her face. He drew back when she stirred a bit, and extended his hand again when she was still. Her skin was smooth and delightful to the touch, and it showed no signs of flawing or imperfections. His hand went down to her Padawan braid and toyed with it; even the plait was perfect in its evenness and simplicity. She had grown, and she had grown beautifully._

_He held her hand in his, noting how her fingers were delicately interlaced with his own. It was skin against skin, and as his eyes moved up to watch her face, made pale by moonlight, he wondered how different contact would be with her on an entirely different level. His eyes lingered at the curve of her lips and then sighed, throwing the impossible into the wind._

_He was then painfully aware of the fact that he was beginning to fall in love with her._


	11. Ten

**Author's note: **I have no idea if Korriban has lakes. And I borrowed some quotes and phrases from some Star Wars books and movies.__

How could he have been so stupid not to notice? It was there already, with his protectiveness and concern and all towards her. Anakin shook his head, almost stumbling over a tree root he never noticed.

He knew he always loved her, but only as a brother would to a sister, and he never thought that his feelings towards her would evolve to something deeper and more intense. It was the same kind of feeling he had almost a year ago, before Tahiri left for Yavin 4, but he thought it gone forever after she underwent a major personality change. Now, every time he would look at her, or whenever she would talk to him, he got the familiar tickly feeling in his stomach.

Anakin mentally slapped himself. _You can't fall for her, she's your apprentice, and you love her only as you would a sister, _a little voice inside him insisted. He tried to concentrate on that thought, but somehow, Lunaris would pop back into his head, driving away his unsure resolution.

He was so preoccupied in his thoughts that he jumped when he felt a small hand touch his arm. "Are you alright?" Lunaris asked, peering up into his blue eyes worriedly.

Anakin stared for a moment. "Am I—what? Oh...I mean—no…uh…yes!" 

Lunaris raised her eyebrow at his slowly reddening face. "Are you sure?"

Anakin could only nod.

"Whatever you say," she said, and walked on ahead of him, R2-D2 trailing behind her. They started their journey well after the sun was up, and this time, it was Lunaris who persisted to start already, since they woke up late and still had a long way to go.

Even the way she walked was nice, he thought. Her posture was straight and she exuded an air of confidence as she walked, her hair being drifted back as the wind blew around her.

He mentally slapped himself in the head again. _What is wrong with you? _He could only shake his head at that little voice again. He didn't know if he was even sure he loved her, or if it was just a momentary infatuation, and he didn't know if it was alright for him to be feeling that way towards her. He knew that she loved him back, but only as a sister would love a brother.

He heard a small squeal of delight ahead of him. "Master! Look!"

He ran up ahead, thinking her in mortal peril and needed to be rescued, when he came up to a fairly large body of water. "It's a lake," he said passively.

Lunaris' eyes widened. "Is that what it's called?" she asked, crouching down and trailing her fingers through the clear blue water. "It's so big! I've never seen a pool of water this big!"

"You've never seen a lake in your whole life?"

Lunaris shrugged. "My father never let me out of the house a lot often, and my mom died when I was really young, and when I entered the academy, they never let me out, either. Coruscant doesn't have a lot of these…lakes now, do they? The largest pool of water I've seen was when my father made me clean the toilet. I never thought toilets would be so big when you're the one cleaning them."

"So wait. You've never seen a lake?

"No. Not until now."

"How about the sea?"

"Never."

He shook his head in disbelief. "Not even in books?"

"Well, I've read their names, but never really saw the actual thing. There are no picture books in the Jedi Archives, see."

"Tell you what. We'll stay here for about an hour, so you can enjoy the…lake here."

He blushed when she threw her arms around his neck.

Anakin watched as his apprentice deftly folded, creased and uncreased a piece of paper into a sailboat. She set it down on the water and watched as the wind blew the tiny paper vessel away from them. She nodded her head back, sunlight falling on her face, black locks trailing behind her. Positioned that way, eyes closed, framed against the soft blue line of the lake, her simple beauty closed Anakin's throat for a moment.

She opened one eye to look at him. "What?"

"Uh…nothing." He blushed and looked away. He'd been doing a lot of blushing since that morning. 

"I don't think it's 'nothing'." She dipped her bare foot in the water and playfully splashed a bit of it on the cuff of his pants. "What's wrong? Are you thinking about Tahiri again?"

_No, I'm thinking about you, _he thought, but didn't say it aloud. Instead he said, "Yeah, I am."

He saw her face fall out of the corner of his eye, but he pretended he didn't notice. "You're worried about her."

"Yes."

"Do you want to tell me about it?"

"I feel it."

"Feel what?"

"I can feel them hurting her. Ever since we met, Tahiri and I have been able to communicate to each other in a level higher than language. Master Ikrit said so." Master Ikrit was an old Jedi Master who believed Anakin and Tahiri to be strongly Force-binded together. "I can feel the pain they inflict on her. Lunaris, I want to do something. The only thing I can do now is look for the base, but even if we do, it might be too late. I…" He broke off and looked away.

Lunaris was silent. Then she dried her feet and put on her shoes. "Come on," she said unexpectedly, standing up.

Anakin looked up at her. "But 'Ris, this is the first time you've been here. I want you to enjoy this place, while we have the time. I promised you that. Besides, it's barely been an hour."

Her small figure loomed above him. "No. My pleasure is not our priority right now. We didn't come here to let me have a good time. We came here to prevent the Yuuzhan Vong from getting to the scrolls first, or to keep them from discovering what's in them. Come on," she repeated, and started to walk away. R2-D2 gave a small bleep and rolled after her.

_Why'd she suddenly change her mind? _he thought, bewildered. He hurriedly put his shoes back on and ran to catch up with her. He sensed hurt and suppressed unhappiness through the Force.

Then it came to him in a sort of electric jolt. "Lunaris, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have told you that. I was just worried about Tahiri, and--" he was trying to keep up with Lunaris' pace at the same time trying to talk to her. "—I thought you might have wanted to know. You asked, didn't you?"

"Yeah, I did," she said in a small voice, but continued her snatched stride. "That's why we're going now, aren't we? We have to save Tahiri, and cut up a bunch of scrolls." She abruptly stopped and looked at him, and Anakin was surprised to see tears in her eyes, despite the smile on her face. 

"'Ris, I--"

"Let's go." Her words were clipped, and she resumed her quick pace.

Anakin stared at her retreating back, bewildered. He wanted to reach out to her, to find out what she really meant through the Force, but he knew she wouldn't like his invasion of privacy, no matter how subtle he was. He sighed and followed her instead.

I was the first who found it. "Master, look! The Yuuzhan Vong base." What Tahiri said was true: the entire base was enormous. And it all looked…alive. The Yuuzhan Vong abhorred technology and all sorts off machinery, and their ships and structures were said to be made of living, growing things, yet I was surprised to actually see it and find out out that it _was _true. I didn't think everything would look so…thriving. Even their amphistaffs were alive, as I watched two Yuuzhan Vong guards patrol around what seemed to be the entrance to the main building from behind a thick shrub.

I had kept silent all throughout the journey, because I needed to think. I was grateful Master Anakin didn't probe through my thoughts with Force; I liked my privacy, and this certainly was very private. It hurt me to know that he was still concerned about Tahiri, even if he told me he didn't know if he still loved her, and even if thinking that made me sound so inconsiderate. I knew that he had his rights to worry about her; she was his best friend, he'd known her almost all his life, and he used to love her. I didn't know why I was so hurt about Master Anakin's worry over her, though. I had to meditate on it, but not now.

I expected scurrying feet running behind me, but there was none. I turned around and saw that Master Anakin was perched atop an elevated knoll, lying on his stomach, gazing at the base. I wasted no time in running up to him, and lay down on my stomach as well beside him. "Well?" I asked impatiently.

He made a shooing motion, and I noticed his eyes were closed. He was meditating, so I joined him.

We tuned out to the Force sensations around us and focused instead on Tahiri. She was hurt, weak, and badly tortured, yet we sensed her strong spirit and relieved some of her pain by transferring some of our energy to her. I could feel the Force ebbing and flowing around us, detaching me from particulars that binded me to the material world. I filled my heart with reassurance and reached out through the Force, feeling Master Anakin and Tahiri do the same.

Master Anakin held us for a few treasured moments, filling me with love and courage and Tahiri with strength and endurance. Tahiri, in turn, embraced us, as she delivered herself to a Jedi healing trance. I let all my worries, hurts and frustrations be released and instead satiated them with hopeful thoughts and quiet emotions.

_/Where are you, Tahiri? /_

_/They left me in the execution area. I am guarded, but not as heavy as they usually would. /_

_/What did they do to you? /_

_/They asked me if I was alone, because they would hunt you down and kill you if I told them I wasn't. I think they already know you're here. /_

_/Tahiri…/ _Master Anakin embraced her in the Force.

/You must save me, Anakin, Lunaris…I have information you will need to disable this base and to get those scrolls…Help me, Anakin Solo…you're my only hope. /

_/Tahiri! /_

_/She's resting now, my young Padawan. /_

When we had finished, I felt refreshed and at peace in the Force. It was the most intimate Force communication I had ever experienced, because Master Anakin and Tahiri and I had relinquished ourselves without restraint to the Force.

I sat back on the ground. "What do we do now?"

"First, we wait for midnight before we start. We have to rescue Tahiri first, so we can know whatever we need to know from her."

"How do you suggest we do that?"

"I have a plan."

Oh, no.

"I hope you know what we're both doing," I muttered to Master Anakin as we both crouched down behind a rock, keeping watch on two Yuuzhan Vong guards patrolling in front of one of the main buildings. 

"Of course I do. Don't you have any faith in me?" Master Anakin paused for a moment to grin at me, then turned back to watch another set of Yuuzhan Vong guards in front of the another one of the main buildings. "Now, do you remember what you're supposed to say?"

"I think so…it's _do-ro'ik vong pratte_, right?" I rolled the words around in my mouth. "Pardon my asking, but what in the world does it mean?"

"I dunno," Master Anakin shrugged. "I heard Tahiri yell it out as some guy was about to kill me. Some of their language remained in her brain, I guess. Don't worry about what it means, even she didn't know what it meant. Besides, you're supposed to yell it out, aren't you?"

I gulped. Any moment now, we'd be popping out of the bushes, and I'd have to shout that out to get their attention. I tried one last time, though. "Why me? I mean, this is the first time I'll be fighting against _them,_ and who knows, I might not get it right, and they might think I'm insulting their language, and all dive for me. You know I don't have a very loud voice, Master…"

"Come off it, 'Ris. Whether or not you'll be getting it right isn't the point. We've got to provoke them to make them attack us, and not pronouncing it right is one way of irritating them. I'll be using the Force to magnify your voice to such a level that all patrolling guards outside will hear it, yet whomever's inside won't. Now get ready."__

We both watched another pair of lookouts descend from the ramp of the third main building, a dome-shaped structure which I had guessed to be the barracks, or wherever the warriors were supposed to be staying.

"Lightsabers on." Two lightblades, a purple one and a white one, pierced through the dark.

"Get ready." My heart was hammering wildly in my throat.

"Now!" We jumped out of the bushes and charged towards the base. _"Do-ro'ik vong pratte_!" I shouted, almost dropping my lightsaber at the loudness of my voice.

Four Yuuzhan Vong guards rushed towards us, their amphistaffs raised. I rolled to the ground and swung at the nearest guard's legs. His right foot flew into the air before landing down beside his fallen body with a sickening thud.  I drove my lightsaber into the chest of the next guard, and blocked the low upward thrust of the de-footed guard. I plunged my saber into his chest as well, and raised it up when he stopped stirring. For the sake of just making sure, I beheaded the other guard's head before running off to help Master Anakin.

There were five guards on Master Anakin all at the same time, and I used the Force to toss three of them into the air. "Thanks, 'Ris," Master Anakin managed to grunt as he struggled under the consecutive blows of one seemingly angry Yuuzhan Vong. I turned around in time to riposte the blow of an amphistaff aimed for my head. The warrior, realizing he was too close, tried to move back to strike again, but it was too late. His head flew off his body. Behind me, I heard a warrior cry out from Master Anakin's lightsaber.

And now there were three. "I seem to have a flair for beheading Yuuzhan Vong guards," I panted to Master Anakin as he pushed against my back with his, fighting two warriors at the same time.

"When I grab you, kick these two guards," he ordered, switching off his lightsaber. He wheeled around, snatched me by the waist, and propelled me around to face the two fighters. My feet hit them squarely on their necks, twisting and breaking them in the process. 

The last one picked himself off the ground and stormed towards us. Master Anakin heaved me into the air, making me fall straight onto the guard and allowing me to chop his head off.

"Let's go, 'Ris," he said, running past me. I caught up to him, laughing.

"Don't laugh," he said. "Help me look for Tahiri!"

"That was fun," I said, thumbing the control on my lightsaber.

"Now you know why I like going on missions," he replied.

We halted as we reached a small, dust-covered field. A small figure was lying down on the ground in the middle. "Tahiri!" I cried, running towards her.

"No!" Master Anakin lunged forward and held me back in time. "Feel, don't think. Use your instincts." He pointed to two Yuuzhan Vong guards advancing towards her, holding stun cuffs I recognized as those supplied by the Peace Brigade. "I'll go distract them while you get Tahiri, understand?"

I nodded and sprinted towards Tahiri. Behind me, I heard Master Anakin switch on his lightsaber and ran towards the guards. 

"Tahiri!" I skidded on my knees and lifted her head. Her short blonde hair was mussed up, and there were bruises on her face. I could faintly make out the scars inflicted by the Yuuzhan Vong on her a year ago. 

"Lunaris!" she said weakly. "Where's Anakin?"

"Fighting two Vong warriors, but he'll follow. We have to get you out now." I struggled to lift her up, and put her arm around my shoulder to support her. 

"Hurry. Tell him to hurry. Others will be coming out of the other buildings." I half-dragged, half-carried her away from the field.

Master Anakin ran up behind me and lifted Tahiri off her feet. "All gone," he said to me, as we ran towards the knoll. Master Anakin gently laid her on the ground. "Get a medi-aid kit, Artoo," he asked the little droid. 

I watched as Master Anakin smoothed the hair out of her face. "I'm so glad you're safe, Tahiri," he murmured, bending down to kiss her. 

I decided I couldn't bear to watch anymore of it, and quietly walked backward, slowly blending into the dark.

Tahiri's hand went to the back of Anakin's neck, pulling him down towards her and kissing him back. "Thanks for getting me, Anakin," she said, smiling up at him. 

He grinned down at her, and Tahiri was surprised as he held back unshed tears. "I'm your best friend, aren't I? You'd do the same thing to me."

She reached up and wiped away his tears with her thumb. "Aww, don't go all mushy on me now, Solo, you know I hate tears." Her old self emerged for an instant.

"Sorry," he said. "You just don't know how happy I am to know you're safe." Artoo promptly arrived, with the medi-kit in one extended metal claw. Anakin took the kit, and Artoo rolled back and automatically shut itself in standby mode.

He pulled out a couple of bandages and tubes of cream and began doctoring Tahiri's wounds. "You're hurt. What happened?"

Tahiri didn't know. It all went by in a sort of blur, like a hologram put on fast forward, with some scenes only being paused long enough for her to remember. She told Anakin so.

He merely shook his head. "Never mind about that. We'll talk about it tomorrow, when you've had your rest. Right now, you need to sleep." He took her hand and placed them both in a healing trance, resting his head on her chest. She felt herself drifting off to sleep, with hazy visions of random scenes in her head.

"Ouch. Stop it. Ouch." Anakin muttered in his sleep, as Artoo poked at his arm. "Cut it out."  
  


Artoo extended a pair of tweezers and tweaked his arm. "Ow!" he exclaimed, sitting up and rubbing his arm. "What, Artoo?"

Artoo whirred agitatedly and turned towards Tahiri's side. Anakin's eyes followed Artoo's direction and could barely make out Lunaris lying down on her stomach with her hand on Tahiri's, shaking copiously.

"Lunaris!" he whispered in the dark, and groped towards her. He pushed her so she was on her back, and saw that she was still awake. "What are you doing?"

"Taking…some of…Tahiri's pain and…" She seemed to be in great pain. "I'm replaying…everything that happened to her…while she was…in the base…" She gritted her teeth, and managed not to cry out.

"Let go of Tahiri's hand!" he told her, trying to pry Lunaris' fingers from Tahiri's. 

"I can't!" she yelped. "It's too late…Just wait for it…to finish…it'll be done…soon…"

Anakin watched helplessly as Lunaris writhed, thrashed, and bit down her cries, in an attempt to relieve the pain she felt. Tahiri, he noticed, seemed to sleep peacefully, as Lunaris drained the pain from her memories. Finally, she slumped down, her grip on Tahiri's hand loosened. "All done," she said weakly.

Anakin took her by the shoulders and shook her. "You stupid girl!" he said, emphasizing each word with a violent shake. "What were you trying to do?"

Her eyes were glazed over, and her face was slowly losing color. "When she tells you everything that happened to her tomorrow, she won't be feeling anything. It'll just be as if she was reciting a memorized poem," she murmured. She reached inside her robes and pulled out a flask with familiar-looking red liquid inside it. She pulled out the stopper and swallowed nearly half the bottle. "There. Much better."

"What did you do?" Anakin didn't want to see her like this. He didn't want her to suffer anymore than she had to. It was really stupid of her to do it, but it was too late. 

"I now know everything she went through, but the difference here is I have the pain she felt."

"How long will it stay with you?"

"I'll be dreaming of it, I think, along with the ones of my father's."

"What?!" He slapped her hard, which sent her rolling on the ground. "What were you _thinking_?"

"Of Tahiri," she said feebly. "I was watching her sleep, and she looked so disturbed. I don't think she deserved it, so I took it. She's looking much better now, don't you think?"

"And _you_ deserve it? Lunaris, how could you?"

"I just did. Leave me, Master, I'm so tired. This pain-taking thing is exhausting. I just want to sleep." She lay her head on her arms and was immediately fast asleep.


End file.
